- Hands-down, I’d say macOS. Linux is not mentioned in the question, so I won’t deal with that here. Here’s why you should get a Mac instead of a Windows computer:. Macs can run Windows too. Whether it’s in a virtual machine or using Boot Camp, Mac.
- Your Mac will last for a long time, and if it breaks, you know exactly where to take it. Apple I've owned several Macs, but the first one I got to use at home was an iMac my mom bought for our.
- Start With the End in Mind if you are sure where you want to go with your coding or programming skills this will lead you to the right language right laptop and software you might want to use. So the short answer to your questions is it best to buy a Mac or PC for programming, depends on.
Which Mac should I buy to learn coding and programming?
In short, it offers many of the great programming utilities and languages found in Linux distros and leaves the headaches of Windows behind, all while providing a world-class, flexible, UI. But, I'd agree with you in questioning why people would prefer solely OS X for general programming. Not very good for that. Read next: Complete guide to coding and programming on a Mac Why programmers think Mac OS X is the best OS to use Dmitri Zagidulin, a distributed systems engineer, sums up the change: 'Go to a.
Learning how to code is a great idea: programming and coding is an increasingly important skill to acquire. And coding and programming are increasingly part of the school curriculum, so it's something to consider when buying a Mac for your family - which Mac would be best as a machine on which to learn coding?
The first thing we'll say is this: get a Mac over all other kinds of computer. Trust us on this. If you want to learn to code, you want to buy a Mac. Read our guide: Why programmers think Macs are best for coding.
We have lots of guides to learning to code, and you can discover a lot by reading our Complete guide to coding & programming on Mac article.
See also:
Best Mac buying guide 2016
Best MacBook 2016: Find out which Mac laptop is best for you
Best Mac for students 2016: Which Mac should you buy for university?
Best MacBook 2016: Find out which Mac laptop is best for you
Best Mac for students 2016: Which Mac should you buy for university?
Best Mac for coding: Power requirements
The good news is that you don't need a powerful, expensive Mac to learn programming.
Many newcomers think that because programming is an advanced part of computing, they need an advanced computer. Actually, the opposite is true. Programming enables you to work closely with the hardware of a computer, and as a novice you're unlikely to place any demands on it.
Advanced app developers may have bigger requirements. See our Best Mac for app development feature if you already know how to program, and are looking to develop apps professionally.
But newcomers don't need a high-end Mac. Learning to code is much less demanding than using software developed by professionals. Compared to other activities, like video editing or playing video games, coding is an absolute featherweight when it comes to hardware demands.
In fact, the activity you do around coding, such as watching video clips on training sites and using interactive websites like Codecademy, are all going to be more demanding than coding itself.
Coding doesn't have heavy data requirements either. Apple's Xcode developer environment takes up a hefty 10GB of storage space, but that aside the programs you write will tend to be quite small.
So you don't need speed, and you don't need storage. What do you need to learn coding on a Mac?
Read next: Macmini vsMacBookAir: Which is thebestcheapMac?
Best Mac for coding and programming: Types of Mac
Apple currently offers six different types of Mac (three laptops, three desktops):
MacBook
MacBook Air
MacBook Pro
Mac mini
iMac
Mac Pro
MacBook Air
MacBook Pro
Mac mini
iMac
Mac Pro
You can learn to code on any of these machines, but each one offers different advantages. The first question is whether you want to learn coding on a desktop or laptop.
Both are valid choices. Coding requires focus and concentration, so working on a desktop in a quiet room is a good idea. But you can do that just as well on a laptop, and still take your Mac with you when you need to work on the move.
Laptops are more expensive than desktops. The cheapest desktop (the Mac mini) starts at £399 while the cheapest MacBook is the MacBook Air (£749).
Best Mac for coding and programming: Best laptop for learning to code
The new MacBook is a stylish machine, and its Retina display is gorgeous. But it is expensive and small.
The MacBook Air is a more cost-effective choice, offering a little more power for less money. We use a MacBook Air 11-inch to code, and it runs just fine. The additional screen estate on the 13-inch model is a good investment, though.
The MacBook Pro 15-inch is the best choice. The extra screen estate makes it easier to view two or more windows at the same time. This is handy for learning as you'll often have a text editor, or IDE (Integrated Developer Environment) open alongside a web browser or PDF document displaying a tutorial.
We are currently waiting for Apple to announce a new MacBook Pro range though, and expect the new model to have a flash interactive LED function bar. So right now is not a good time to buy a MacBook Pro, if you can hold out until after October 2016 you'll have much better options all around.
Best Mac for coding and programming: Best desktop for learning to code
One thing developers have in common, is that they all value large screens (and having lots of screen estate). You'll often find developers using two, or three screens at the same time.
With this in mind we're going to rule out the Mac Pro. It's expensive for what it offers anyway, but for a beginner learning to code the Mac Pro is a vast expensive and absolute overkill.
That leaves you choosing between a Mac mini and iMac. There's a big price difference between the two, and if you have a spare monitor, keyboard and mouse we see no problem with the entry-level Mac mini for learning to code.
If you want to other tasks, like run design software or play games then it's better to upgrade to the mid-range Mac mini model. It has a much faster processor.
![Is Mac Good For Programming Is Mac Good For Programming](/uploads/1/1/7/8/117804449/218669648.jpg)
If you don't have any of the parts required for a Mac mini, then it's better to get an iMac. Buy the entry-level 21-inch or 27-inch Retina display is our advice. The larger screen is gorgeous and well worth the money.
Best Mac for coding and programming: Conclusion
You can learn to code on any Mac, so the best Mac you can afford is the one to get. But don't feel pressured to buy the latest Mac. In fact, you can pick up a pretty good deal on the refurb store. We've been seeing entry-level Mac mini computers for £339 lately, which is a great entry point for newcomers.
If we had to pick any Mac to learn to code with, it'd be the iMac with 27-inch Retina display. The huge screen estate makes it easy to run many programs at once. It has all the power you need and is a joy to behold.
The SSD that's not afraid of heights
More from Western Digital
More from Western Digital
Join the newsletter!
Are you a programmer? If yes, you had 3 questions with coding tools. What’s best text editor (IDE)? What’s best programming font? What’s best code color scheme? I got them like you and I spent more than 1 years to choose and using Monaco as programing font but I’m still looking for better programing font than Monaco
I’m using VIM as my default code editor, thankfully, I don’t take too much time to pick it. I felt in love with VIM after tried Emacs, GEdit, NetBean, Eclipse … but the next step to choose a good font that takes too much time than I expected.
Here is a list of my favorite programming fonts that I have tested. I’ve used Linux for 7 years, I take screenshot of each font in VIM with Full of Anti-aliasing. So I can’t really say anything about how these fonts look on Windows or Mac OS, let’s test by yourself but I guess it’s the same.
I’m using VIM as my default code editor, thankfully, I don’t take too much time to pick it. I felt in love with VIM after tried Emacs, GEdit, NetBean, Eclipse … but the next step to choose a good font that takes too much time than I expected.
Here is a list of my favorite programming fonts that I have tested. I’ve used Linux for 7 years, I take screenshot of each font in VIM with Full of Anti-aliasing. So I can’t really say anything about how these fonts look on Windows or Mac OS, let’s test by yourself but I guess it’s the same.
Programing Fonts Requirement
Most variable-width fonts are not suited for code because programming fonts have different requirements than text fonts. Here are some of the things I’m looking for in a font for coding:
[digitalocean]
[digitalocean]
- Monospaced assignment operators nicely line up and make aligning code easier. Coding is easiest for most developers when using a fixed-width font.
- Clear and highly readable: The font that I’m looking for must has clear letters, with easily distinguishable punctuation and between certain common characters like zero and O character, 1 and l and | … The font should be easily legible at any size, and in particular at small sizes.
- Unicode to display almost characters with any languages
1. Monaco, Regular, 10pt
This font is my default font. It’s excellent font, originally from the Mac. Monaco shines for legibility at non-antialiased small sizes, when you really want to maximize your on-screen code. This font looks great at 9 or 10-points.
2. Consolas, Regular, 11pt
Consolas is specifically designed to work with ClearType, so may become highly aliased when ClearType is not turned on. Consolas is a commercial font, but is bundled with many Microsoft products, so there’s a good chance you might already have it to use on Mac, Linux. It comes with the newer Windows and it’s a VERY high quality font.
3. Inconsolata, Medium, 12pt
It seems fuzzier than necessary and some letters end up with a nib below them. Inconsolata is designed to be used with anti-aliasing enabled, but it’s surprisingly legible even at very small sizes.
4. Anonymous Pro, Regular, 11pt
Anonymous Pro (2009) is a family of four fixed-width fonts designed with coding in mind. Anonymous Pro features an international, Unicode-based character set, with support for most Western and Central European Latin-based languages, plus Greek and Cyrillic.
There are two versions: Anonymous Pro and Anonymous Pro Minus. Anonymous Pro contains embedded bitmaps for smaller sizes, Anonymous Pro Minus does not.
5. DejaVu Sans Mono, Book, 10pt
This nice open source font family is derived from the Bitstream Vera family, itself close to the Microsoft core Web fonts. Its purpose is to provide a wider range of characters while maintaining the original look and feel through the process of collaborative development.
6. Terminus, Regular, 12pt
Terminus Font is a clean, fixed width bitmap font, designed for long (8 and more hours per day) work with computers, remember to turn off aliasing. Terminus is the closest thing to 6×13 fixed that comes pre-packaged on modern Linux distributions.
7. Source Code Pro, Light, 10pt
Best Programming Language For Mac
Source Code Pro is a set of OpenType fonts that have been designed to work well in user interface (UI) environments. An open source programming font released by Adobe, made with the intent of maximizing usability and avoiding common design flaws in monospaced fonts.
8. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Roman, 11pt
It has a fully-serifed i and excellent numerals, and a lowercase. The Bitstream Vera Sans Mono typeface in particular is suitable for technical work, as it clearly distinguishes ‘l’ (lowercase L) from ‘1’ (one) and ‘I’ (uppercase i), and ‘0’ (zero) from ‘O’. I’m using it as default font of Arch Linux.
9. Envy Code R, Regular, 10pt
This typeface contains over 550 glyphs providing full complements for DOS, Windows and Mac versions of the US, Western, Central Europe, Turkish, Baltic, Icelandic and Nordic code-pages. This hits several Unicode ranges including Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended A & B, Box Drawing, Block Elements, Letterlike Symbols, Number Forms, Arrows…
This font offers well distinct programming characters like {} vs. () and the classically confusing 0O and 1lI. Quite narrow (like Anonymous Pro) but squarish, the letters are easy to read and offer a pleasing reading experience.
10. Monofur, Regular, 13pt
Best Programming Software For Mac
monofur is a monospaced font (all characters have the same width) derived from the eurofurence typeface family. It shares the same style characteristics, but the proportions of most characters have been recalculated to fit into a 1:2 character cell. It’s one of the more quirky fonts among those favored by programmers (for things like its unique “e” and “g”).
Conclusion
Is A Mac Good For Programming
You won’t find the best programing fonts that is suitable for every developers because choice of programming font is as much a personal preference as anything else.
Of course there are many more fonts out there but as mentioned above, they are my favorite programing font that I’ve tested with VIM. All the fonts discussed here are good choices for programmers, so use whichever font appeals to you.
Have I listed or missed your programming font of choice? If you have a favorite font, let me know, I really would like to know which fonts you are prefer. All comments welcome!
Of course there are many more fonts out there but as mentioned above, they are my favorite programing font that I’ve tested with VIM. All the fonts discussed here are good choices for programmers, so use whichever font appeals to you.
Have I listed or missed your programming font of choice? If you have a favorite font, let me know, I really would like to know which fonts you are prefer. All comments welcome!