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More Devs Now Use OS X Than Linux, Says Survey (9to5mac.com)
An anonymous reader writes from an article on 9to5Mac: Stack Overflow reports that more developers now use OS X than Linux as their primary OS, and that if the trend continues, fewer than half of all developers will be using Windows next year. The site says it carried out "the most comprehensive developer survey ever conducted," with more than 56,000 coders across 173 countries taking part.
The survey also mentioned more were still developing for Android than iOS -- 61.9% versus 47.5%. However, almost a third of developers are using Swift, which was also the second most loved language after Rust.
The survey also mentioned more were still developing for Android than iOS -- 61.9% versus 47.5%. However, almost a third of developers are using Swift, which was also the second most loved language after Rust.
Hint: OSX runs is BSD based and runs a terminal.
mac hardware lets you run all three major OS's (osx + windows + linux) on a single piece of hardware.
also — you get all the commandline UNIX-y goodness + the ability to run Microsoft Word + the ability to run Adobe Photoshop right beside your terminal window.
and it never stops running for some arcane reason after a pkg update.
56K is actually a good size for the survey. The rule of thumb is that if you want to compute relatively accurate statistics from a population of size N, then you should sample a representative subset of N**0.5. The only caveat is that the sampling method should try to avoid biasing.
At 56 million coders that's about N = 2**26, N**0.5 = 2**13 = 8192. So a survey size of 56K is about 7 times overkill, but it doesn't hurt to have more than necessary.
If you are making money on your development skills, having dual 30 inch displays helps to boost your productivity a bit permanently while only requiring a small investment from you or your employer every several years. OSX supports these setups perfectly by letting you configure arrangement of the monitors and their exact physical layout on the desk, and has a menu bar and dock on every screen, plus multiple monitors can be connected through a single Thunderbolt cable. Windows and Linux don't. If you want power user / developer mindshare this is a must.
OS X is the UNIX that large organizations support their employees using. And btw it's nothing like iOS.
I used Linux exclusively for about 12 years. I'm even named in the Linux kernel changelog, so you could say I've long been a fan of Linux. When sold my business and took a 9-5 job with a big organization, I was offered a choice - Windows or OS X. The corporate helpdesk, the active directory services, etc didn't do Linux. Knowing that OS X is UNIX (certified UNIX, POSIX, single UNIX), I chose OS X over Windows.
I don't buy Apple's mobile devices, and didn't much care for the iPad my boss handed me, but that's iOS. Time for me to try OS X.
I was surprised to find that for day-to-day use, OS X is almost exactly like Linux, on a quality machine, with few to no annoyances. It just works. I can download and compile all my favorite FOSS software the same way I always have - ./configure; make; make install. It's just like a well-polished Linux distribution, and it integrates seamlessly with the corporate network.
System administration is a little different, but I haven't needed to do much system administration on my Macs, they just work.
If you like Linux or BSD and you're in an organization that includes Windows desktops, Active Directory, etc, a Mac is a very good fit. Don't let any negative experience with iOS fool you, OS X on a Mac Pro is a powerful UNIX system, and the hardware is well made. (The hardware isn't anything magical, but it's well designed, solid construction, and good performance) .
I'm a developer. I own a Macbook. It's got a nice box. It brings up a bash shell. I can ssh. I don't need to install linux on it to be doing the same things the same way I would be doing on Linux if I wasn't already logged into a Linux box over the network.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
You can pry my Linux desktop from my cold dead hands. OSX and Windows are just too hard.
Always denial and abuse from Linux zealots. Just because your set up works doesn't mean everyone else's does. That's the true Linux experience - getting a working setup can take longer then it does for other OSes, because you may have to spend time trying to figure out why some of your hardware doesn't work. Wi-Fi has caused me many issues over the years including an Ubuntu update that broke the previously working driver.
I really don't know what people mean when they say that OSX is more user friendly.
You should consider that a limitation of you ability to understand. Seriously.
this is much much less efficient and therefore less user friendly
And this is where your misunderstanding comes from. Here's a clue. User friendly: Allows me to easily digest the XAVC 4K footage from my camera, do basic color correction, cut away the junk, create a presentable end result. That's user friendly. Having multiple options for window managers, being exceedingly configurable to the point of me being able to make it fit my life perfectly when developing Java software - user-unfriendly for 99.999992% of the worlds population.
If you find more UI elements too distracting to do your work then it is pills you need, not a streamlined OS
I don't sit around masturbating to my own UI configuration every day. I do work that pays. For me to accomplish this I need to run applications that work. I design and develop software, which includes GUI components that are special made so I need a good vector graphics tool to assist in this. Also, I take pictures and make movies in my spare time, and I also use some of those skills when I develop GUI elements for my applications. In order to do that I need applications. A user friendly OS has those applications. Linux does not, and probably never will.
How do you get by without applications?