Programming - Mac vs Windows
 

Hey guys,

Thinking of taking some programming courses & UX design. Reading websites like Red Academy they recommend using a Mac.

Question for the forums, is it really necessary to use a Mac for coding & UXD? If so, any recommendations for $500 price range?


*edit*
Will a Macbook Air Core 2 Duo/128GB SSD/2GB RAM do the job?

Really depends on what you want to build.

For iOS/OSX apps you'll need a mac as Xcode only runs on OSX.

Android - it doesn't really matter, Android Studio runs on both Mac and Windows.

Web - again it doesn't matter too much, you basically need a text editor and a web browser. You do get to test on Edge/IE if you use windows.

For actual UX and UI it really depends on the tools, if your looking at working with mostly the Adobe suite you can probably get by with a Windows PC.

A lot of the designers I've been working with recently have been using Sketch https://www.sketchapp.com/ which is also only availabe on OSX. There are some Windows viewers but I've never tried.

For me I stick with OSX when I'm programming as I can't really live without Terminal. Windows does have ubuntu but there it's just not the same for me.

I spend almost all my development time in either a terminal or in a editor. If you're building web applications, your server is most likely going to be UNIX based as well. It's easier for me to install all the tools I need and configure it how I like on OSX.

Some people live with Command Prompt and Powershell as that's what they're used to too. When I develop on my Windows PC, I usually run out a virtual box with Ubuntu. I am really interested in how Ubuntu matures with Windows though and if they can offer a similar environment without the need for a virtual machine.

It really depends on what language you're going to be working in.

I think most people get a Mac because it's a versatile machine capable of running different OSes. For example, if you plan on developing any Apple stuff, you'll need Xcode and that only runs on OS X (or a VM)

^ or a hackintosh, though I'm not sure how easy that is to do with the latest versions of things.

My work all have hackintosh, they're programmers except for me (designer) using the mac

like everyone said, depends on the language your programming in. for me i program everything in windows except for apple apps, were we just fire up the hackintosh or run macox in a VM environment

Thanks all, it sounds like it comes down to the application of Sketch... looks like I'm buying a Mac.

Thanks again!