Hello,
I was recently admitted under the Computer Science major at UCI in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. I was planning on purchasing a Macbook Pro over the summer to prepare for college, but I’m not sure if the laptop would be compatible with applications required for Computer Science classes.
Anyone from UCI taking Computer Science or anyone taking Computer Science anywhere, which kind of laptop should I purchase or is a Macbook perfect?
I’m a CS major at an LAC and most of the CS people I know here have MacBooks of some kind (I have a MacBook Pro).
A Macbook would be just fine. I’d say something like 80 to 90 percent of the students in my introduction to programming class at USC have a Macbook. They had us install a linux virtual machine as an environment for us to code and the installation process is a bit simpler on Windows PCs, but not much of an overall difference from a Macbook.
Anything, just make sure you have a good deal of RAM. A faster processor doesn’t hurt either, but not needed really.
I always advocate for Mac / Linux, but you can manage on Windows.
Not a Mac person here - I own an ASUS with 500GB, Intel i5 2.6GHz, 6GB RAM, and a very basic GPU (Intel HD). At the time, it was around $600, and after 3 years, I am still using it as I am writing this. Make sure your setup will work well for whichever brand and OS you end up choosing, and looking through some of your course requirements would also be a good idea, such as which software you’d be using throughout your CS courses.
@PensPhils Why Mac? Mac is the worst of the 3 imo.
@idkName Mostly because it is essentially UNIX - if you want true UNIX of course, you go Linux. Everyone is going to prefer a different OS from the use view, particularly for any Systems work, Mac makes your life a lot easier compared to Windows. In general, Windows users tend to have more trouble due to the OS’s coding. Systems teachers absolutely hate Windows from my experience.
Mac isn’t perfect - it’s the least bang for your buck by price, that’s for sure. Still, I think it’s the best option for the combination of CS and general use. As others have said, it’s the majority choice of most programmers, particularly those who don’t game.
Again, as I said, anything works as long as it has the RAM you need.
@PengsPhils idk, doesn’t Mac have a lot of restrictions? I never used a mac (not much at least), but it is the safest OS. How can it be safe without a lot of limitations.
It seems you’re making a lot of assumptions for not using Mac’s - I don’t know the internal OS code (no one does, it’s closed source of course), but Mac’s safety doesn’t limit what you can do. In fact, Windows is still catching up to Mac in what it can do - since Mac is essentially UNIX, compiling C is just like in Linux - the entire shell is basically close to Linux from the user’s standpoint. Windows JUST announced it was building in a Bash Shell and even user-mode Linux because developers have been asking for it for ages now - Mac has always had the former in recent history and Linux is always an easy virtual machine away.
The general user safety Mac provides is more in how it installs programs and the level of security there I think. Everything else is more or less the same.
There are a bunch more daily advantages to Mac for UX - I currently have 8 desktops on 2 monitors and can get to any of them in under a second - something you couldn’t do on Windows to save you life as far as I know (they have been trying to get that working for ages, they may have finally succeeded). That’s personal preferences of course, but for daily use, Mac has so much more capability. The hardware is overpriced but they make the hardware/software work together well (supposedly).
Unless you’re gaming, are personally committed to the Windows OS, or don’t know/want to learn Linux as your home OS, I don’t see a reason to go Windows. If you want a cheaper price, get a PC and put your flavor of Linux on it. For stability and user experience, Mac is usually the hands down pick for those who can afford it - other posters experiences seem to support that as well.
There is no “safest OS”. There is no safe for anything.
@econcalc There is a reason why Windows have tons of Anti viruses and Linux/Mac don’t. I’m not sure how Mac protect users, but I been told that every program is ran in a sandbox. In terms of Linux, as long as you know what you are doing, you should be fine. Just don’t run a virus in root and it can’t do too much harm. Windows on the other hand…
I use a Macbook Pro and it’s the ideal combination for me because I can work on iOS projects as well as use the terminal handily rather than dual booting Ubuntu or another Linux environment that I used in my old PC. I also have Parallels which gives me a virtual machine for Windows, so I can essentially triple boot freely. This is easier in my opinion than getting a VM for Mac (aka a HackIntosh).
My D and her dad built a custom rig for her. It’s not a MAC, but other that that I don’t know much about it other than they designed it for programming and gaming. She also has a tiny little hp laptop with a solid state hard drive that she brings to class. If she ends up learing iOS languages we’ll probably bite the bullet and get a mac for her as well.
Buy a Windows computer with a big hard drive, and dual-boot Ubuntu on it. Then you have both. Or just wipe out Windows if UEFI prevents you from dual-booting, and install a Windows VM if you really need it for some software reason (and want to pay for another Windows license). In some ways VMs are more convenient than dual-boots.
Mac’s are way over-priced.
Anybody who thinks Macs are safe from malware is living in the past or a bad dream. There have been quite a few reports of malware directed at Macs and a couple of pretty bad zero day vulnerabilities. If you have a Mac, you should still run anti-virus and anti-malware.
If you want a macbook as a computer, I would get a macbook. In 99% of cases it will not matter whether you are using windows or Mac. If you install linux, I would recommend partitioning your hard drive (dual boot) so you do not lose the operating system that came with your laptop and can run software that does not run on linux or with the help of WINE.