Ask HN: Are MacBook Pros still a good purchase for developers?
I work with Macbooks but I&#x27;ve always had Windows PCs at home.<p>Try the keyboard on the new MBP. If you agree with me that its literally the worst keyboard in the history of PCs, and you don&#x27;t want to deal with the hassle of using a bluetooth keyboard to replace it, then you might want to switch to a Windows laptop. If you like the keyboard (and while I struggle to understand it many people actually love it), then its still one of the better options on the market for high end hardware.<p>I use Win&#x2F;Linux&#x2F;Mac OS on a daily basis for work. Each OS has its benefits.<p>I&#x27;m not sure why, but the way a mouse works in Windows is so much better than MacOS that it renders mice almost unusable on Macs. Best case scenario you manage to get mouse acceleration kind of disabled, so its just unpleasant instead of unusable. I think the way mice handle very badly on Macs may be why mac users are so in love with the Mac&#x27;s touchpad. I&#x27;ve tried the magic mouse and a bunch of Logitech&#x2F;Microsoft mice and no matter what I do it isn&#x27;t smooth or accurate. For a long time, I felt Windows&#x27; command line &#x2F; powershell were a huge drawback. However, the Linux subsystem, while not a perfect solution, has done a lot to even the playing field.<p>Mac OS is great for a few reasons. Once again I&#x27;m not sure why but Apple&#x27;s touchpad is so much better than Windows&#x27; that 99.99% of Windows touchpads seem borderline unusable. I would still prefer using a mouse if it weren&#x27;t for the issues described above, but Mac&#x27;s touchpad is still very pleasant to use and the gestures are great.<p>The second thing I love about Macs is how easy it is to run every platform on a Mac. VMWare fusion is affordable and amazing. Windows, Linux, and Mac VMs run as flawlessly as can be expected. In comparison, on Windows&#x27; version of VMWare you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to even get a Mac OS VM working, let alone running smoothly. Linux VMs are hit or miss. Sometimes they work great out of the box, sometimes they require a lot of tweaking. For a more anecdotal comment, for a dev environment, I really enjoy the workflow of Mac more than Windows or Linux.<p>Linux&#x27;s biggest selling point is the amount of freedom and power you have within the OS, combined with a proper unix command line system. Its a great dev environment. However, I think it still isn&#x27;t ready for the desktop for most people. Even the easiest Linux distro still takes more work than it should. Every once in a while I have to spend half a day troubleshooting something that broke when I either installed or updated it.<p>If I had to pick one for home use, I would pick Windows all day long because proper mouse support is important to me and I am somewhat of a gamer. I just wish Windows actually was a Unix clone instead of having to settle for the Unix subsystem.<p>If I had to pick one for work, MacOS would hands-down be my top pick if it weren&#x27;t for the fact that they refuse to admit that they designed a defective keyboard and remove it from future models. I currently have a 2017 model. I was using a 2013 model until it died. I tried to trade the new one for a 2015 with the good keyboard, but I&#x27;m stuck with it for now. Another thing to consider is that I had my 2017 MBP for 2 months before the logic board had to be replaced due to a faulty sensor. If they don&#x27;t improve things considerably, my next work machine will probably be Windows.