Father, husband, programmer, musician, amateur photographer, generally staring into a computer screen or out of the window.
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I haven't had a chance to try the new MacBooks, my late 2013 is still running beautifully (and plenty quick & powerful for years to come), but if I had to buy a new laptop and wasn't impressed with the latest revisions.. I'd buy a decent PC laptop and run Linux, personally. Probably a Debian or variant as that's what I'm used to. But then I can't stand working on Windows as it's too inconsistent and fiddly for me (I'm also autistic, so it's not just a religious opinion in the way some seem to express themselves). However, personal preferences aside, you really need to consider what is most appropriate for the type of work you are doing. Are you going to need to use Adobe products now or in the future? If you do, will you be able to? What about other commercial closed source products that may not be available for Linux? You can run some things with Wine of course, but it's not a silver bullet and you run the risk of updates breaking compatibility. Will it be sufficient for you to dual boot to Windows should you need to do some things? You could also run Windows in a VM, but would you be happy with the performance? Lots to consider, but essentially you need to weigh up your preferences against the technical requirements and decide just how much headache it might cause.
I'll be honest with you, I don't like it - but it's necessary in web development to have at least some rudimentary front end skills even if you are a back end developer. Firstly because you will find yourself wading through HTML and JS at some point even if you are a backend developer, and secondly because you won't always have the relevant people with the relevant skills at hand. Right now I am working on kickstarting an internal system for a shoestring startup, and I am currently the only developer on the team. The important thing at the end of the day is to be product minded, not technology minded - so whether you learn more of one or the other should really be lead by what is required of you at the time. Right now I'm learning far more front end than back end while I working on integrating a new VueJS based interface on their legacy system, and then later I will have my head buried deep in either Elixir or Go while I replace the backend. The notion that one should learn one thing more than other is really only relevant when you're talking about curiosity and interest, or when you are new to an area of development and you need some skills to get your foot in the door. After that, it's really a case of transferring skills between technologies you've learned as and when you devise solutions to solve problems. P.S. I hate that I can't type in Markdown in Hashnode any more ;P
The last time I needed an upgrade from my employer (a while ago now, I'm self employed now) I made a very specific and detailed account of the problems I was having and why, and then we talked about it and I got about 1/4 of the way through the list before he realised I wasn't just asking for a nicer machine. The list was very, very specific - including wait times for things to compile and start up, and the amount of time lost by having to manipulate palettes in applications because my screen was too small, etc. Depending on which project I was working on at the time, I could demonstrate that I was spending sometimes nearly a whole working day in a week just waiting for things. It's a no-brainer justification for the person holding the purse strings if buying you a machine actually has a net financial (and productivity) gain. They actually let me keep the 27" iMac they bought me in the end, but it's now my secondary machine as I bought a much nicer MacBook pro a couple of years ago :P