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Development Tools

Zachary Gruber
Zachary Gruber
6,897 Points

OS Decision

I'm delving into Front-End Development and was watching the intro to Console Foundations where Jim explains how great Ubuntu is for web development. Obviously this appealed to me because I want my development to be as good as can be!

So I'm interested in your opinion: what OS should I use for Front-End Development? I currently am running a MacBook Pro with a bootcamp partitioned hard drive (so I have Windows 7 and OSX) should I switch to OSX when I'm developing? Should I somehow triple-partition and get Ubuntu? Should I stick with Windows which is what I'm currently developing on?

Thanks for your input!

4 Answers

Matthew Reed
PLUS
Matthew Reed
Courses Plus Student 17,986 Points

Mac OSX and Ubuntu are actually very similar since they are both based on Unix. You really can't go wrong with either. I use Mac but I've used Ubuntu and as far as development goes, they are pretty much the same. Windows is less common since it's not compatible with Unix-like operation systems. It's personal preference though. I'd just stick with Mac if I was you.

I would personally stick with OS X. In my opinion no operating even comes close to OS X from a developers point of view.

-Luke

Zachary Gruber
Zachary Gruber
6,897 Points

Now, this may be a silly question, but what exactly are the benefits of being on a POSIX based OS? (I'm basing my question only what I've learned in the very first console foundations lesson so if that's explained thoroughly later on feel free to tell me patience is a virtue)

Matthew Reed
PLUS
Matthew Reed
Courses Plus Student 17,986 Points

Well I think they do explain it but I won't make you wait. Basically most servers run Linux, so having a Posix compliant OS makes it easier to talk to the server. It's possible on Windows but it's a pain. Windows servers exist but they are far less common and usually more expensive.