Update: For those joining in late 2017, I've been hunting for a laptop with limited success. Read on for what I've settled on,. If you ask anyone who knows me, I’m probably the biggest Apple fan they know.
Ask for a suggestion of what computer to get, and I’ll almost certainly either tell you the MacBook Pro, or to wait, because Apple is about to update its hardware finally. But recently, I realized I’d gotten tired of Apple’s attitude toward the desktop. The progress in macOS land has basically been dead since Yosemite, two years ago, and Apple’s updates to the platform have been incredibly small. I’m a developer, and it seems to me Apple doesn’t pay any attention to its software or care about the hundreds of thousands of developers that have embraced the Mac as their go-to platform.
In the latest version user easily Flow in WebStorm. JetBrains WebStorm License Key is a new great feature in which User can now develop mobile apps with React Native. Create, run and debug apps without leaving the IDE, and enjoy smart coding assistance.
Take a look at: the only feature of note is Siri, which is half-baked as it is, and the things that did get ported over from iOS are half-done too. On the developer side? Nothing, unless you use XCode — the same story it’s been for years. The only reason it’s still even viable as a platform for web developers at all is because of the incredible work the open source community does on the Mac toolchain (take a look at how easy it is to use Node, npm, Yarn or any of the other relatively new tools out there)., rolling it into the iOS team, and it shows. The new MacBook Pros, released in late 2016, where interesting, but something of a half-hearted shrug in the direction of users: they’re okaymachines, but they sure aren’t interesting at all.
Their hardware is underpowered, focusing on thinness and a gimmicky touch bar rather than power or functionality, the previous tentpoles of the Mac. To tell the truth, I’m a life-long Windows user that grew to be disillusioned by Microsoft after Windows Vista. It was obvious the company had no strategy or vision, and while Windows 7 smoothed things over a little, Apple’s side had something I wanted: everything worked together nicely.
You could send iMessages from your computer or phone, answer calls wherever you were, and throw files to other devices with ease — and so I was tempted away in early 2013 when Apple released its second-generation 15' Retina MacBook Pro. That machine was my first real taste of Apple’s world, and I loved it. Everything was designed nicely, and worked well together. Apple’s deep roots in Unix meant I actually finally picked up web development for the first time, learnt how to use the terminal deeply, and even gave back to some open-source projects. But, about the time I joined Apple’s world, the company’s attention pivoted. The Mac was no longer important, as the iPhone, iPad and then the iPad Pro became the focus of the company.
The message was simple: why do you even need a computer when a tablet and phone can do it all anyway? As a result, Apple’s focus on the Mac waned: the hardware didn’t receive an update for over four years, and then OS X, once regularly updated with interesting features, now only receives the scraps from iOS. If you want to see this in action, check out iMessage on Mac: the flagship feature of iOS, iMessage stickers, barely works on Mac. You started seeing this in almost everything: Airdrop, Apple’s much-touted feature that lets you easily beam files between computer and phone was my first taste of the company’s “just works” mentality — about 30% of the time it worked every time, and the rest of the time you couldn’t connect at all. Then there was handoff, the heralded feature that let you work on one device, then seamlessly move to another. I don’t know if I ever got it to work with any sense of reliability. I'm out of apologia juice for defending Apple going with 4 USB-C ports on the new MacBook over a useful mix and keeping the MagSafe.
?? — DHH (@dhh) Meanwhile, Microsoft had licked its wounds inflicted by Windows 8, found a passionate new CEO in Satya Nadella, and started doing something interesting with Windows 10: it actually started listening, and implementing, features people wanted. I mostly ignored the Windows world until late last year when Microsoft introduced the Windows Linux Subsystem — basically a way to use a Linux terminal natively in Windows — which made me realize that development on Windows might actually be pleasant eventually. I wrote back then that even this was enough to tempt me back to Windows, and it was a game changer: After waiting eagerly for the MacBook Pro refresh, then being utterly disappointed by what Apple actually shipped — a high-end priced laptop with poor performance — I started wondering if I could go back to Windows. Gaming on Mac, which initially showed promising signs of life had started dying in 2015, since Apple hadn’t shipped any meaningful hardware bumps in years, and I was increasingly interested in Virtual Reality but Oculus dropped support for the Mac in 2016 for the same reasons.
Then, in October 2016, Microsoft unveiled the next version of Windows: Creators Update out of nowhere. It brings dedicated gaming features, full OS-level VR support, color customization, a people bar for quick chat and a lot more in a free update.
I watched the event with my mouth open (it was the first time I’d tuned in to any Microsoft event in years), wondering how Microsoft was suddenly shipping awesome features out of nowhere. This, and seeing all the progress Microsoft was making with the Linux subsystem, as well as Apple’s lack of any meaningful progress, made me decide to make the jump back.
I’m not a hater, I’m just tired of not being able to get a machine worth using. It took me months to convince myself to do it, but I spent weeks poring over forum posts about computer specs and new hardware before realizing how far ahead the PC really is now: the NVIDIA GTX 1080 graphics card is an insane work-horse that can play any game — VR or otherwise — you can throw at it without breaking a sweat. I realized I’m so damn tired of, and started actually considering trying Windows again. So, in February 2017, I found myself building a computer from scratch.
I sold my 15' MacBook Pro (I now use a 12' MacBook for on-the-go productivity), and invested in building a desktop workhorse that would fit my needs and last for a long time. I’ll spare you too much detail, but if you’re interested in my build you can - the machine is a bit of overkill, but given I want to learn how to develop for VR, it seemed to be a good balance of power and price for the long haul. Jekyll and Gulp living in harmony Now I’ve been on Windows for about six weeks, and while I was expecting to hate it, I’ve found myself impressed. It’s not perfect, but it’s clear Microsoft is sweating the details for the first time in recent memory. I’ve got my development environment set up just the way I liked it on Mac, thanks to the Linux subsystem — everything from Jekyll to Gulp works exactly how I’d expect.
I’d been worried about Microsoft’s high-density display support, since it was unusable in Windows 8 and even the original release of Windows 10, but Creator’s Update seems to be able to finally handle 4K displays without things just getting weird. On top of that?
I can play recent games without the PC breaking a sweat, and I’ve started experimenting with VR. The HTC Vive is an incredible device, and I’m just at the start of figuring out Unity so I can actually create my own things for it. The experience hasn’t been all roses — I had forgotten drivers were a thing, and the quality of apps on Windows, while far better than I remember, is sorely lacking. This seems to be getting addressed quickly thanks to apps: Slack, and are awesome, and stand out in the Windows world for being fantastic. It might seem small, but it's a huge deal I don’t say this lightly, but Windows is back, and Microsoft is doing a great job. Microsoft is getting better, faster at making Windows good than Apple is getting better at doing anything to OS X.
There’s a few things I sorely miss: Sketch, which I use a lot for quick design work, iMessage so I don’t need to keep pulling out my phone and a handful of other things but it’s easy enough to live without them. It’s clear to me from Apple’s language and sheer focus — cough killing the Airport cough — that all Apple cares about is iOS, and the iPhone. Maybe they’ll ship something awesome out of nowhere that really brings back its “productivity” play, but the company is busy trying to convince people that its ham-fisted iPad Pro is good for work. Over the coming weeks I plan to write about the great parts of Windows, how I got my development environment set up, the apps I use, and, of course, the bad parts. I’ll be honest, I can’t bring myself to leave Mac at work yet, because I’m not convinced there’s a good enough Windows laptop yet but maybe that will change over time. If you’re a Mac user sitting, waiting for Apple to maybe release a real workhorse computer so you can actually do your work, stop what you’re doing and take another look at Windows. It’s awesome, and now you’ll be able to get something with incredible power for a great price that’s actually worth using.
Update 11/10: For the last few months I've been looking for a laptop that can replace my trusty MBP and it's been more difficult than expected. I tried the but the fan noise was a little much - but I've settled on the Dell XPS as a excellent replacement and will post more soon ( to keep in the loop).
Every year, many new Code Editors are launched, and developer finds it challenging to choose one. Following is a curated list of Top 15 code editors for Windows and Mac platform. All the editors in the list are Free to use. The code editor could be standalone or integrated into an IDE. 1) Notepad is a popular free to use code editor written in C.
It uses pure win32 API which offers greater execution speed and small program size. It runs only in the window's environment, and it uses GPL License. Platform: Windows Price: Free Features:. Support syntax highlighting for languages like PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Auto-completion: Word completion, Function completion.
Macro recording and playback. User-defined Syntax highlighting and folding. Entirely customizable GUI. Multi-view and Multi-Language support Download link: 2) Atom is useful code editor tool preferred by programmers due to its simple interface compared to the other editors. Atom users can submit packages and them for the software.
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux Price: Free Features:. Package Manager Integrated for Plugins support. The feature of smart autocompletion.
Supports Command Palette. Multiple panes. Allow cross-platform editing Download link: 3) Visual Studio Code is an open source code editor software developed by Microsoft. It offers built-in support for TypeScript, JavaScript, and Node.js.
It's autocompleted with IntelliSense features provides smart completions based on variable types, essential modules, and function definitions. Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Price: Free Features:. Easy working with Git and other SCM (Software Configuration management) providers.
Code refactoring & debugging. Easily extensible and customizable Download link: 4) Brackets. Is a lightweight tool developed by Adobe. It is an open source text editor which is free to download. It allows you to a toggle between your source code and the browser view.
Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Price: Free Features:. Quick Edit UIfeature puts context-specific code and tools inline.
Offers live preview, preprocessor support, and inline editors. Pleasant looking UI. Especially developed tool for macOS. It comes with the inbuilt extension manager for fast & effective extension management. Download link: 5) NetBeans is an open-source code editor tool for developing with Java, PHP, C, and other programming languages. With this editor, code analyzers, and converters.
It allows you to upgrade your applications to use new Java 8 language constructs. Platforms: Mac Windows Linux Price: Free Features:. Easy & Efficient Project Management. Offers fast & Smart Code Editing. Rapid User Interface Development. Helps you to write bug-free code Download link: 6) Bluefish a is a cross-platform editor is a speedy tool which can handle dozens of files simultaneously. The tool allows developers to conduct remote editing.
This code editor tool offers many options to s programmers and web developers, to write websites, scripts, and programming code. Price: Free Platforms: Mac Windows Linux Features:. Loads hundreds of files within seconds. Auto-recovery of changes in modified documents after a crash, kill or shutdown.
Project support feature helps you to work efficiently on multiple projects. Unlimited undo/redo functionality. Download link: 7) VIM is an advanced text editor open source tool which is also considered to be an IDE in its way. This tool allows managing your text editing activities with vim editors and UNIX System which can be used on-premise or online. Price: Free Platform: Linux Features:. Extensive plugin support. Powerful search and replace.
Integrates with many tools. Macro recording and playback. Support for hundreds of programming languages and file formats Download link: 8) Geany is a text editor which uses GTK+ toolkit. It also has certain basic features of an integrated development environment. The tool supports many filetypes and has some nice features. Price: Free Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Features:. Allows you to add a note for applying the indent settings in the project preferences.
Navigating through the source code. Allows popup menu on message window notebooks and sidebar. Show status message on attempt to execute empty context action Download link: 9) Komodo Edit is an easy to use and powerful code editing tool. It allows you to do debugging, unit testing, code refactoring. It also provides code profile, plus integrations with other technologies like Grunt, PhoneGap, Docker, Vagrant and many more. Price: Free Trial Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Features:.
Multi-Language Editor. A lot of contemporary color schemes. Native Unicode support and Unicode compatibility checking. Easily integrates into the desktop environment. Download link: 10) Emacs is a Unix based text editor tool which is used by programmers, engineers, students, and system administrators.
It allows you to add, modify, delete, insert, words, letters, lines, and other units of text. Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Features:.
Complete built-in documentation. Full Unicode support for many human scripts. Highly customizable, using Emacs Lisp code. A packaging system for installing and downloading extensions Download link: 11) jEdit, a code editor program which is written in Java. This open source tool supports hundreds of plugins and macros.
It offers a large collection of plugins maintained by a worldwide developer team. Features:. Built-in macro language & extensible plugin architecture. Allows copy and paste with an unlimited number of clipboards. You can download plugins with the help of the plugin manager. Register contents are saved across editing sessions. Allows auto indent, and syntax highlighting over 200 languages Price: Free Platform: Mac, Windows & Linux Download link: 12) TextMate is a versatile plain text editor for mac with unique and innovative features.
The tool offers support for many programming languages, writing prose in structured formats such as blogging, running SQL queries, writing screenplays, etc. Price: Free Platform: MAC Features:. Auto-Indent for Common Actions. CSS-like Selectors to find the Scope of Actions and Settings.
Dynamic Outline for Working With Multiple Files. Function Pop-up for Quick Overview and Navigation. Run Shell Commands from Within a Document. Visual Bookmarks to Jump Between Places in a File Download link: 13) gedit tool is designed as a general-purpose text editor. It offers simple and eases to use GUI. It includes features for editing source code and structured text like markup languages.
Price: Free Platforms: Mac & Windows Features:. Support for syntax highlighting for languages like C, C, Java, HTML, XML, Python, etc. Editing files from remote locations.
Support for text wrapping and auto indentation. Search and replace with the support of regular expressions. A flexible plugin system which allows you to add new features Download link: 14) Light Table is an IDE and text editor tool for software development. The tool offers fast feedback and allowing instant execution, debugging and access to documentation. Price: Free Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Features:. Inline Evaluation. Light Table is a lightweight, clean, and sleek interface.
Powerful editing and plugin manager. The feature of println to keep track of critical values in your code Download link: 15) Blue Griffon is an open source HTML editor powered by Gecko, which is Firefox's rendering engine. It has a simple interface and most usual features needed to create web pages that are compliant with W3C web standards. Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Features:. Easy to change the color of font or to adjust the border style.
Opens Tabs from Last Session. Shortcuts for CSS Editing. Multiple Themes for Source View Download link.