Does hardware matter to Programmers?

[Isaiah Dodson]

Or is it all personal preference, either it being a Mac or PC. Is using one more recommended than the other with it comes to coding and doing designs and building things for the key things when it comes to it?

[vorticalbox]

3 minutes ago, Isaiah Dodson said:

Or is it all personal preference, either it being a Mac or PC. Is using one more recommended than the other with it comes to coding and doing designs and building things for the key things when it comes to it?

well Mac and PC are mostly link to Mac and Windows the operating system not the hardware inside. Personally i don't believe hardware makes that much difference. I have created software in visual studio on an i3 the same as my now 8350.

i actually use ubuntu as my operating system.

[manikyath]

well, mac/pc is software, and well.. it matters to some extent.

 

offcourse you cant test mac osx compatibility when testing on windows, as for the specific hardware, it mostly comes down to "how fast does it compile, and can i run the program at hand?"

 

a very good example is a build teksyndicate did a while back for an opensource dev that needed to process a pretty massive amount of data, and it was literally taking weeks on his C2Q machine with 4GB ram.

[AresKrieger]

You can use whatever, but I don't recommend mac since it is a more closed OS which limits things, linux is commonly used by programmers, though windows is also fine and I use it while programing

 

(oh btw I assume you mean OS not hardware based on your wording)

[Isaiah Dodson]

Meant to type software/OS, I was thinking about something else and had hardware in my mind lol. Sorry for the wrong wording guys.

[JefferyD90]

6 minutes ago, Isaiah Dodson said:

Or is it all personal preference, either it being a Mac or PC. Is using one more recommended than the other with it comes to coding and doing designs and building things for the key things when it comes to it?

mostly I worry about storage space, ram, and my operating system.

[Clechay]

Well, the only relay important difference between PC and Mac is operating system. OSX is only way to have fully supported Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud under UNIX-like system (BSD) so it's best compromise between developer-friendly linux and very well supported windows. 

Yes, I know it's possible to run OSX on PC but it's unofficial and apple may try to make it impossible in the future.

[BrightCandle]

The hardware certainly matters if you do this as a professional. A million lines of code project will take many minutes to compile but can be reduced substantially with parallelisation of the build process and using an SSD to increase the amount of IO done. I don't enjoy programming on slow computers and even fast ones tend to suffer a bit once you start doing everything like running a profiler and your debugger on an application all with VMs thrown in there as well. Great programmers can get max out any machine made today easily, its just a question of the activity.

 

My own experience is that faster cores matters more than more cores and SSDs matter but the model doesn't, lots of RAM can be essential depending on what you are doing but in todays Docker/VirtualBox/VMWare world its really critical to have a lot of RAM.

[jslowik]

In my honest opinion I think you're overall better off with a Windows machine for development. The only exception would be if you were exclusively developing iOS applications.

 

I do most of my work in Java and C#. It's just easier to have a native Windows system rather than having to add a layer of virtualization to be productive.

 

I've occasionally dabbled in the Linux world, but since my desktop is not only my primary development machine, but also my down time and gaming device I just prefer to stick with the OS that covers all of my requirements.

 

In the interest of full disclosure I do use a Macbook Pro as my primary portable development machine, or on the rare occasion when I need to do something for iOS. I also don't think there's a wrong answer really, this is just what I'm comfortable and most productive with.

[DevBlox]

The only "be warned" message I have is if you're going to work with .NET, then ideally you want to pick a PC with Windows, though there are ways, like I use a Windows Server VM with Visual Studio and that's it, it's pretty fast, though there are some things to be vary of. 

 

Otherwise these days it does not matter at all, just pick one you're most comfortable with. Macbook Pro's are great, though I do not fancy iOS too much, I am a Linux user at heart anyway. I found that business class laptops, like Thinkpads are great too, they have failed with some things (biggest complaint: it had a mushy pad with buttons in the corners that I still hate and can't get used to after having it for a year) on their previous generation ones, but they fixed them on the newest ones anyway. Overall they are pretty awesome, I use it with 2 docks: one at work and one at home, which is so neat that I don't want a laptop that does not have this feature anymore. They also have great Linux compatibility, everything works out-of-the-box even (on Fedora at least).

 

And as per operating systems, whatever your "religion" just use that, obviously you are more efficient on it. That does not mean you shouldn't learn to use a new one though. You should! I'm thinking of giving BSD a try, I have an old laptop that I can conveniently put it on. 

[Gachr]

Like the others said before, "PC vs Mac" is more about the system, however you can just use Linux on a PC which works very well in most scenarios.

Linux and OSX machines have lots of features that developers can use. Starting with package management, with which you can very easily use lots of compilers/interpreters. Usage of tools such as dependency managers and server software is WAY easier on Linux.

I'm a Ruby developer, when I wanted to set something up on Windows, I had to download an unofficial installer and the dependency management (gem) didn't work at all.

 

17 hours ago, jslowik said:

In my honest opinion I think you're overall better off with a Windows machine for development. The only exception would be if you were exclusively developing iOS applications.

 

I do most of my work in Java and C#. It's just easier to have a native Windows system rather than having to add a layer of virtualization to be productive.

 

I've occasionally dabbled in the Linux world, but since my desktop is not only my primary development machine, but also my down time and gaming device I just prefer to stick with the OS that covers all of my requirements.

 

In the interest of full disclosure I do use a Macbook Pro as my primary portable development machine, or on the rare occasion when I need to do something for iOS. I also don't think there's a wrong answer really, this is just what I'm comfortable and most productive with.

1. You're very wrong, read what I wrote above. C# is the only thing better at Windows, and Java is more or less the same, so you can't speak for most programmers.

2. A layer of virtualisation? You need it in either case for Java. As for C#, some things are built in, but you need to download some Visual packages anyway, which then spam your installed software list.

3. Heard of dual boot?

[Pinguinsan]

12 minutes ago, Gachr said:

Like the others said before, "PC vs Mac" is more about the system, however you can just use Linux on a PC which works very well in most scenarios.

Linux and OSX machines have lots of features that developers can use. Starting with package management, with which you can very easily use lots of compilers/interpreters. Usage of tools such as dependency managers and server software is WAY easier on Linux.

I'm a Ruby developer, when I wanted to set something up on Windows, I had to download an unofficial installer and the dependency management (gem) didn't work at all.

 

1. You're very wrong, read what I wrote above. C# is the only thing better at Windows, and Java is more or less the same, so you can't speak for most programmers.

2. A layer of virtualisation? You need it in either case for Java. As for C#, some things are built in, but you need to download some Visual packages anyway, which then spam your installed software list.

3. Heard of dual boot?

Regarding point number 2: I think he's referring to running a different OS in a hypervisor like VirtualBox or VMWare, not the JVM.

[Gachr]

1 hour ago, Pinguinsan said:

Regarding point number 2: I think he's referring to running a different OS in a hypervisor like VirtualBox or VMWare, not the JVM.

Sooo, running Windows in a VM on Linux? Doesn't make much sense for him.

[Fetzie]

If you're programming in Java, Eclipse is so much faster on Linux than it is on Windows.

[Clechay]

Unfortunately linux drivers for both nVidia and AMD mobile graphic cards are total shiet. Just no vsync at all, no vsync in media players no vsync in any web browser. And it's just the beginning of troubles with hardware compatibility.  Unless you have new intel CPU with very good integrated graphic, linux is gonna be unusable for you. 

[Gachr]

1 hour ago, Clechay said:

Unfortunately linux drivers for both nVidia and AMD mobile graphic cards are total shiet. Just no vsync at all, no vsync in media players no vsync in any web browser. And it's just the beginning of troubles with hardware compatibility.  Unless you have new intel CPU with very good integrated graphic, linux is gonna be unusable for you. 

A load of bull poop here!

[othertomperson]

Mac OS is the most commonly used OS by developers, followed by Windows 7 and all variants of Linux combined are third.

[fizzlesticks]

5 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

Mac OS is the most commonly used OS by developers, followed by Windows 7 and all variants of Linux combined are third.

Only because Mac never changes it's name. Not separating Mac and Linux by version like it did for Windows is nonsense.

[jslowik]

On 6/16/2016 at 4:16 PM, Gachr said:

1. You're very wrong, read what I wrote above. C# is the only thing better at Windows, and Java is more or less the same, so you can't speak for most programmers.

2. A layer of virtualisation? You need it in either case for Java. As for C#, some things are built in, but you need to download some Visual packages anyway, which then spam your installed software list.

3. Heard of dual boot?

 

1. I even italicized the fact that it was my opinion. I went out of my way to say that the opinion you were reading was from the perspective of someone who writes primarily C# and Java. Good reading skills, man. Jeez.
2. Referring to a second OS as a virtual machine on the native OS (Bootcamp, VMWare, Hyper-V, Parallels, you pick). As a Java developer I'm aware of what the JVM is, and what the V stands for. Clearly I wasn't referring to that.
3. Dual boot is something I've tried many different times. Again my OPINION is that I would just rather run the operating system that hits 90% of my requirements on a day to day basis rather than going through the tedium of reboots. For me, that's Windows.

 

I made a solid effort to explain what my opinion was, what my circumstances were, and why I arrived at my choice. If the OP's circumstances are completely different, or they do not agree, they are free to disregard. My opinion is clearly "very right" because it is the decision I live with on a daily basis. I thank you for your interest, but please make an effort to contribute to the discussion next time?

 

In the end I think I really believe there is no right choice, OP. You just need to go with whatever makes you the most productive you can be. Again, that's my opinion. YMMV.

[AlTech]

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 0:15 AM, Isaiah Dodson said:

Or is it all personal preference, either it being a Mac or PC. Is using one more recommended than the other with it comes to coding and doing designs and building things for the key things when it comes to it?

For making Windows Programs you run Windows, for making Mac and IOS apps you use Mac OS X. For making Linux programs you use Linux.

 

So long as you have at least a desktop core i5 for compiling you should be fine no matter what (unless you're making the next Google Chrome, in that case 8 core i7 CPUs need only apply).

[AlTech]

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2016 at 5:42 AM, fizzlesticks said:

Only because Mac never changes it's name. Not separating Mac and Linux by version like it did for Windows is nonsense.

It just did this year.

 

OS X is now macOS.

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2016 at 5:22 AM, Gachr said:

A load of bull poop here!

Ummmm no. Actually. Nvidia drivers for Linux are shitty as hell.

 

 

[straight_stewie]

Sort of: If you're trying to build a parallel program, it helps to have a parallel processor. If you're trying to build a program to use graphics cards, it helps to have a graphics card. If you're building a memory intensive application, it helps to make sure that there's enough memory to run the application. You do need to know the target instruction set (so you can compile to it, like x64 vs x86...). In certain situations it helps to know whether your target machine is Big Endian or Little Endian... Stuff like that.

In general, to build software you want (in minimum) a slightly nicer computer than the target platform that your software is going to run on, unless you are doing remote computing stuff (servers, supercomputers...) and you can deploy to the remote system for testing and what not. This is because not only do you need to be able to run the software you are writing, you need to be able to run it inside the debugger/IDE which adds a little extra overhead.

[Gachr]

On 20/06/2016 at 0:44 AM, jslowik said:

 

1. I even italicized the fact that it was my opinion. I went out of my way to say that the opinion you were reading was from the perspective of someone who writes primarily C# and Java. Good reading skills, man. Jeez.
2. Referring to a second OS as a virtual machine on the native OS (Bootcamp, VMWare, Hyper-V, Parallels, you pick). As a Java developer I'm aware of what the JVM is, and what the V stands for. Clearly I wasn't referring to that.
3. Dual boot is something I've tried many different times. Again my OPINION is that I would just rather run the operating system that hits 90% of my requirements on a day to day basis rather than going through the tedium of reboots. For me, that's Windows.

 

I made a solid effort to explain what my opinion was, what my circumstances were, and why I arrived at my choice. If the OP's circumstances are completely different, or they do not agree, they are free to disregard. My opinion is clearly "very right" because it is the decision I live with on a daily basis. I thank you for your interest, but please make an effort to contribute to the discussion next time?

 

In the end I think I really believe there is no right choice, OP. You just need to go with whatever makes you the most productive you can be. Again, that's my opinion. YMMV.

You weren't clear enough about certain aspects. Yes indeed that's your opinion, and I criticised your opinion, since it's wrong. Problem?

 

On 20/06/2016 at 0:00 PM, AluminiumTech said:

Ummmm no. Actually. Nvidia drivers for Linux are shitty as hell.

Oh, really, are they? That's interesting, since I'm using them since 5 years and I didn't have any issues. Please explain why they are "shitty as hell" and what graphics card you are using.

[ArtsiX]

As long it can run Atom, Chrome, Apache2 and MySQL server I don't really care about hardware.

[AlTech]

35 minutes ago, Gachr said:

You weren't clear enough about certain aspects. Yes indeed that's your opinion, and I criticised your opinion, since it's wrong. Problem?

 

Oh, really, are they? That's interesting, since I'm using them since 5 years and I didn't have any issues. Please explain why they are "shitty as hell" and what graphics card you are using.

GTX 770.