<p>Could someone give me the pros and cons of it for computer science?</p>
<p>Pro: It’s a computer.
Con: It’s a computer.</p>
<p>Pro: Native terminal… X11… you can build pretty much any linux app from source (made easy using MacPorts). Great hardware, reliable, OS is good. Most devs and the majority of CS grad students I know use MBP’s.</p>
<p>Con: ~1200$</p>
<p>Same thing here haha. I’m not sure if I should go for the mac or not. If I were to buy a mac book pro, I would have to dual boot windows or run windows in VM correct?</p>
<p>I have a Macbook and I use a VM to run WinXP if I need to use any Windows-only software. This can be very cheap if your school gives you a free copy of Windows.</p>
<p>Pro: It’s a UNIX machine, ability to run Windows Operating System, nowadays they’re very program compatible.
Con: A good MBP will cost you $$$(anywhere from $1200 to $2000+), and with that money you could buy a much better windows machine, hardware wise.</p>
<p>Build your own, like a real cs major! |-D</p>
<p>Nobody builds their own laptop…</p>
<p>Hey it’s op and money isn’t too big of a deal so I’m thinking the 13 inch MacBook pro is my future laptop, any suggestions on what programs/software to get right away?</p>
<p>Get whatever makes you happy.</p>
<p>i ran into trouble a couple times during C++ where the mac compiler on xcode worked a little bit different than VC++ (i believe once was that on mac i divided 2 ints into a double and the double contained decimals while on windows it didn’t, another time was on mac the solution contained an extra line and when the professor grades he uses a program that matches our solution to his solution character by character and my extra line cost me points) but overall mac is a lot easier to use than PC, at the time i only had a mac so i just used VM to run xp (very slow on old version of macbook since its splitting the ram and cpu power) </p>
<p>i would suggest doing a lower tier macbook for everyday activities, note taking, etc (gotta love the long battery life of macs) and build a PC for programming and other things (gaming?) building an above avg pc isn’t too hard budgetwise, i managed to get a pc that scored 6.9 on everything but harddrive for the windows power index thing on windows 7 for under 600 dollars</p>
<p>Apple charges up the a for upgrading memory and HD size when you customize your Macbook before purchase. You can instead get the bare bones model and easily upgrade the memory and HD yourself for a fraction of the price.</p>
<p>What laptop you have seems irrelevant these days. I know when I had CS classes I would simply SSH into a school server and work through the terminal. I did this because I was graded on how well my code ran on the computers in the computer lab, not how well it ran on my laptop.</p>
<p>In terms of buying a better computer, any money you spend on an Apple made mac book pro is going to have inferior hardware too common laptops with windows in the market.</p>
<p>There are also a lot of legal redtape using Apple products. For the Iphone, Steve Jobs puts heavy emphasis on limiting the types of apps available, so he can charge extra for it if it becomes profitable to do so. If you try to unlock the full potential of your Iphone, Steve Jobs sends software updates to specifically shutdown jailbroken phones.</p>
<p>Don’t fight the Macbook. Just embrace it. You’ll be better off for doing so, because you’ll have a Linux-like machine, but still be able to run Office, and use all of the internet without the hassles of Linux. Unless you’re planning on having a laptop and a desktop (I would not recommend it), then you will find that the Macbook is well worth the one-time investment.</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter very much just get whats cheap</p>
<p>This is how I made my decision:</p>
<p><a href=“http://oi53.■■■■■■■.com/28a19xv.jpg[/url]”>http://oi53.■■■■■■■.com/28a19xv.jpg</a></p>
![http://oi53.■■■■■■■.com/28a19xv.jpg[/url]](http://oi53.tinypic.com/28a19xv.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>^ Yeah because we all know you’re working on the LHC and not just doing HW at a coffee shop.</p>
<p>LOL Let’s get over with this Mac for tech and geek
liar. Sure I know most designers and programmers do use Mac. But I think using Mac doesn’t make you a geek if you don’t even know how to write hello world. I am kidding. Mac is not for cool people.</p>
<p>Get whatever is good for the price. Look. Technology changes every few years. Every year there are tens of new CPU coming out. You can’t fight the technology trend. You can spend 2000 on a macbook pro and then realize it gets hot easily, and it hurts your heart when you see cracks on your macbook pro. Now you can spend that 2000 on a good laptop like Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 14" (that’s what I used), and maybe $200 SSD if you feel like upgrading your hard drive (which isn’t that big a boost anyway if all you need is programming, not for heavy data transferring…)</p>
<p>Now the total cost would be $800 with tax, shipping (of couse Lenovo has lots of coupons out there…)
The other $1000 you can get food, buy iPhone, itouch, or get tonks of good computer science books… you know?</p>
<p>Bottom line is: use whatever you like. But IMO laptop are all the same. Why waste so much on something that can burn yourself within 10 mins ???</p>
<p>
</a></p>
<p>This technical people use windows/linux and non-tech-literate people use macs distinction you are creating is totally false.</p>
<p>A lot of people who work on designing computers and programs that run on computers use Macs. Macs are pretty easy to use and this is nice. When you are working on computer problems that are more difficult than ‘buy a bunch of parts and connect them together’, you want to be able to focus on the problem at hand and not on the computer.</p>
<p>I’m taking a computer science class this semester from a guy who studies how to solve partial differential equations on a computer. He uses a mac. He’s also a smart guy and knows a lot about computation.</p>