Best Development Environment Mac Without Any

Feel free to set up your JavaPythonRubyPHPNodeswhatever development environment in the same way youll do it on native Linux.

Sure there are some exceptions (especially in fields like game development or with technologies like.NET), but the trend is obvious most people hate Windows for software development.

Best Development Environment Mac Without Any

Back in 2008 I switched from Windows to Linux and later that year switched to Mac without any regret.

Developing server applications (meant to run on Linux in production) was always a pain in the ass on Windows: you lacked powerful Unix console with the same tools you have on a Linux server, you needed to download and set up custom libraries and language runtimes in a manual way instead of using automated reliable tools like apt-get, yum or homebrew.

Using libraries with C-bindings was a nightmare: you were forced to either find compiled DLLs somewhere or build them yourself There were always workarounds like using cygwin or developing in virtual machines (and later Vagrant ), but it was still painful comparing to development on Linux or Mac.

Even from a power user standpoint Windows was quite inferior to Linux and Mac.

Probably the biggest downside for me was lack of virtual desktops.

It feels so natural to have separate desktops for different contexts, e.g.

IDE, terminal and probably other development or testing-related tools, separate desktop for instant messengers, etc.

The pain is gone But now were in 2018 and all those issues are not relevant anymore.

There are few innovations hapened last couple of years, that made development on Windows enjoyable: Release of Windows 10, which is a solid modern OS and yeah it supports virtual desktops; Windows Subsystem for Linux; Raise of containerization technologies, particularly Docker; If youre using Docker, development on Windows and Mac feels virtually the same.

If not, Windows development experience is closer to Linux now.

Why is it worth using Windows and not Linux or Mac If you are completely happy with your MacLinux laptop or desktop workstation good for you, probably you should stop reading this article right now.

Going forward lets assume youre less lucky fellow like me, who cannot use Linux (probably you need commercial software that is not availble on Linux or some hardware does not work properly on Linux) or not quite happy with Mac (products are not flexible enough for you as a power user, while the cost is sky-high).

For me the turning point was the release of 2016s Macbook Pro, that lacks ports and functional keys I need every day, shows mediocre performance, but costs more than ever and isnt upgradeable.

Nowadays premium laptops are not limited to Macbooks, there are Dell XPS, Asus Zenbook Pro and few others that are more powerful and flexible.

Practice time Lets set up basic development environment on Windows, so youll get similar experience to what you have in Mac or Linux.

Ironically, youll need Windows PowerShell just to set up Linux Subsystem for Windows and continue with bash, zsh or other unix shell of your choice.

I wont get into WSL setup details, there is already Windows 10 Installation Guide for that.

Now you have Windows as a GUI and familiar Linux Server(Ubuntu in my case) in console.

The Console Once you set the WSL, it is already available via bash console, which looks exactly like standard cmd.exe or PowerShell.

Luckily there is a number of more advanced alternatives available: wsltty, hyper, console2, conemu, cmder.

Most of them felt either buggy or ugly to me, so Ive sticked to Cmder, which is a fork of ConEmu with more reasonable default settings.

Typical CMDer If youre using zsh, there is a great small article Running Windows 10 Ubuntu Bash in Cmder telling you how to set it in CMDer to work flawlessly.

If youre too lazy, here is the command to launch: windirsystem32bash.exe -c zsh -curconsole:p Bash users should use following: windirsystem32bash.exe -curconsole:p At this point it is already more convenient for development than Mac for me, since apt-get is waaay faster than homebrew and WSL feels virtually the same as normal Linux console.

Best Development Environment For Mac