Macbook-Unfit for Computer Science?

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SouLXIV

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Hello, I'm going to be a Information/Computer Science student next year, and I'm currently looking for a laptop to purchase. I was planning on getting a macbook because I wanted something durable and light. However, I was wondering if Macs in general wouldn't be the best choice for computer science majors because not everything is compatible with the Mac OS, especially programmming softwares. Is this true? If there's any current CS students that could comment it'd be great too.
 
A Macbook would be an excellent choice. In fact you'd have to try extra hard to buy a laptop that would be considered unfit for CS. Of course the real answer depends on your CS department. Why not ask them?

As for programming environments, UNIX and gcc are probably near (or at) the top of the list of most widely used. OS X, 10.5, is certified UNIX 03, comes with gcc, and Xcode (GUI dev environment) is free as well. Optionally you can install Windows, Linux, or a number of other operating systems. Under Windows you can get Visual Studio Express, a paired down version of Visual Studio, for free or buy a discounted copy through your College/University store. With the state of virtualization today you don't even need to hassle with partitioning drives.

I hate to say it but when I was in college I had write my own OS, blind folded, but it wasn't so bad because the input device only had a single button. :D j/k
 
It's only unfit if you LET it be unfit, honestly.

I am a continuing CS student, and while my professors have made fun of me or questioned my choice of using a Mac for development:
a) I've never had an issue where I couldn't complete a project or assignment
b) Any tool I needed to code with I was able to use (either natively, through BootCamp or vitrualisation)
c) Through virtualisation, I was able to do really low-level ASM programs without fear of jacking things up.
 
At least at my school almost all the computer science classes were built around unix or linux environments and used tools like GCC. if yours is the same that makes os x better then windows as it has a native GCC compiler. But as was mentioned, Macs can run other os's either through bootcamp or virtualization. So if you want a mac you can definitely make it work. The only class that I can think of where I needed a windows machine when I did my cs minor was the one we needed to use masam and a serial port. And thats what the lab machines were for.
 
Yup, you would be fine with a Mac. I do not personally have one but I know that Eclipse, which is becoming the standard java IDE, works on Macs.
 
KaosDG said:
It's only unfit if you LET it be unfit, honestly.

I am a continuing CS student, and while my professors have made fun of me or questioned my choice of using a Mac for development
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well the fact that they have questioned in the first place still kind of worries me :S I realize that I can install more than 1 operating system on a Mac, but I don't think my budget would be able to take it up to 4 gigs of ram. Do you have an idea about the overall proportion of people that uses Macs in your CS classes? Thanks.
 
It almost sounds like you want someone to talk you out of buying a Mac. I don't think that's going to happen unless you need something in the sub $900 range. Since you're looking at a Macbook Pro I don't think thats the case. As others have said, OS X/Unix makes a great development platform. If you must run windows, you can do so quite efficiently with 2 gigs of ram using bootcamp. For the most part Macs these days are internally no different than something you would buy from dell or any other manufacturer.
 
Audiochris said:
It almost sounds like you want someone to talk you out of buying a Mac. I don't think that's going to happen unless you need something in the sub $900 range. Since you're looking at a Macbook Pro I don't think thats the case. As others have said, OS X/Unix makes a great development platform. If you must run windows, you can do so quite efficiently with 2 gigs of ram using bootcamp. For the most part Macs these days are internally no different than something you would buy from dell or any other manufacturer.
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I'm looking at the Macbook, not the MBP, and the 2.0ghz macbook model starts at 1299, and is $1449 if it's configured to 4 gigs. With the 250gig hardrive it would be $1549. My budget is really around $1300. I'm not looking for someone to talk me out of buying a mac, I just want to hear other's opinions, especially those that are currently CS majors.
 
The biggest problem you might run into would be going into a Windows-centric program where you're going to be making heavy use of MS development tools (watch out for anything involving Visual Studio, Visual Basic, .NET, MFC, ASP...) or is actually Linux specific. It's pretty easy to find out - look around the department's website for course descriptions and syllabuses, look at the computer lab equipment & try to communicate with somebody in the department (professors, grad students and IT/systems support staff are all valuable resources. If you can find a campus Mac/Linux/Computer group, it might be worth getting in touch with them as well).

Multi-booting and virtualization are an option but if the bulk of your work is going to be done in Windows, be it from needing to run MS Visual for programming classes or some required 'security' software for connecting to the campus network, you might as well save yourself $500 and buy a disposable Windows machine that you plan on replacing in 2yr.

As a meaningless data point - when I was last in school 2-3 years ago, about half the professors and grad students were running Macs.


...and, as a side note on the cost of your machine : Take a little more out on your student loans and get the machine decked out and get an Applecare contract.
 
ameoba said:
The biggest problem you might run into would be going into a Windows-centric program where you're going to be making heavy use of MS development tools (watch out for anything involving Visual Studio, Visual Basic, .NET, MFC, ASP...) or is actually Linux specific. It's pretty easy to find out - look around the department's website for course descriptions and syllabuses, look at the computer lab equipment & try to communicate with somebody in the department (professors, grad students and IT/systems support staff are all valuable resources. If you can find a campus Mac/Linux/Computer group, it might be worth getting in touch with them as well).

Multi-booting and virtualization are an option but if the bulk of your work is going to be done in Windows, be it from needing to run MS Visual for programming classes or some required 'security' software for connecting to the campus network, you might as well save yourself $500 and buy a disposable Windows machine that you plan on replacing in 2yr.

As a meaningless data point - when I was last in school 2-3 years ago, about half the professors and grad students were running Macs.


...and, as a side note on the cost of your machine : Take a little more out on your student loans and get the machine decked out and get an Applecare contract.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I've already emailed a couple of coordinators/profs in the CS department and asked for their opinions. It's just that I'm having trouble finding an alternative. The Ideapad U330 looked good when Lenovo claimed it had a 5 hour battery life, but it turned out to be 1.5 hours at the most.

I'll be an undergrad student, and will be paying around $53,000 a year, so money is really tight. My parents just keep saying that I should buy a mediocore HP laptop for around $700 because the current "high end" laptops will be "last gen" anyway in a year or so, and by then I may want to get it replaced.
 
You could always get a non-unibody macbook. Same processor speed, but cheaper. Also, it uses DDR2 memory which is cheaper to upgrade. I'd do a hard drive upgrade yourself. I just upgraded my unibody from 160GB 5400 RPM to 320GB 7200 RPM. Longest part was the OS install.
 
SouLXIV said:
I'm looking at the Macbook, not the MBP, and the 2.0ghz macbook model starts at 1299, and is $1449 if it's configured to 4 gigs. With the 250gig hardrive it would be $1549. My budget is really around $1300. I'm not looking for someone to talk me out of buying a mac, I just want to hear other's opinions, especially those that are currently CS majors.
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(1) Don't buy it new. Get a refurb - you'll save tons of cash, and get the same warranty. Apple refurbs are 100% safe (or, at least as safe as buying one brand new)
(2) Upgrade the memory yourself; it's super-easy to do and will save you money. Doing so will not invalidate your warranty
(3) Do you *need* that extra space, or can you just get an external hard drive to load up 'long-term' media, such as movies and so forth?
 
I'm a CS student at WWU and use my MBP with virtualization software just fine, since getting out of the 100 level pre-req classes, it's all with gcc/linux/unix anyway, and I had a native gcc compiling OS, which was a step ahead of the windows guys, of whom, the serious ones chose a linux distro to install and use daily to get more acclimated to the environment. In the lower level classes I got looks and weird remarks about owning a Mac, so what, those are the guys who I haven't seen in any of my higher level classes at all.

Granted my budget was quite a bit higher than yours...
 
SouLXIV said:
The Ideapad U330 looked good when Lenovo claimed it had a 5 hour battery life, but it turned out to be 1.5 hours at the most.
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What? I have a U330 and I usually get about 3 hours with backlight on medium and wifi in use. With backlight on min and no wifi, I get just a tad under 5 hours.

I'm not trying to sway you in any direction, but you'll probably have an easier time selecting hardware if you do adequate research first...
 
CEpeep said:
What? I have a U330 and I usually get about 3 hours with backlight on medium and wifi in use. With backlight on min and no wifi, I get just a tad under 5 hours.

I'm not trying to sway you in any direction, but you'll probably have an easier time selecting hardware if you do adequate research first...
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I've been looking at reviews for many notebooks for a while. When I read the U330 New Owners thread on Notebookreviews, there's about a 5 page segment of everyone complaining about battery life and most people were getting 1.5-2 hours. Maybe they changed something?
 
SouLXIV said:
I've been looking at reviews for many notebooks for a while. When I read the U330 New Owners thread on Notebookreviews, there's about a 5 page segment of everyone complaining about battery life and most people were getting 1.5-2 hours. Maybe they changed something?
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Prolly just retards running the stock config. Mine came with a bunch of crapware installed on it from the factory (stupid face recognition crap, etc.). I always reinstall the OS on a fresh machine out of habit from old Win9x days, and mine's been running fine. I should note that this is with the integrated GPU. If I switch to discreet, I get about half the battery life, but there's no reason to run in discreet mode for normal use. I also have Bluetooth disabled because I don't need it right now. Oh, and yes, I run with Aero turned on.
 
The great thing about the Macbook is it can run OSX, Windows, and Linux. if your going to develop cross platform then a Mac is a good way to go. It's one of the reasons I got one.
 
KaosDG said:
I am a continuing CS student, and while my professors have made fun of me or questioned my choice of using a Mac for development:
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Blimey! When I was at Swansea doing comp. sci. over half the faculty had Macs.
 
093401-new_white_macbook.png


If you are tight on a budget, they just updated the white MacBook!

- Processor moved to 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo with 1066 MHz frontside bus from 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo with 866 MHz bus
- Standard RAM increased to 2 GB (two 1 GB sticks) from 1 GB (two 512 MB sticks)
- Graphics switched to NVIDIA 9400M with 256 MB of shared memory from Intel GMA X3100 with 144 MB of shared memory
- Bluetooth version updated to 2.1 from 2.0.
- 320 GB, 5400-rpm hard drive option added
 
I have a core duo macbook pro, and besides stuff liek visual studio (Microsoft programs) i haven't had a problem using my macbook pro, core duo version btw, with any programming issues, including web design. I think they are great, and you can pick up a refurbished macbook for 1000 (the newest generation, probably less for the older generation). As well, for anything that does include microsoft if you can't get XP (most of my higher classes use that but here and there we use Visual Studio), I am sure there's an AMAZING Computer Science lab with visual studio all over the place. Met some good people that way. So in short, i think as long as you want to make the mac work it'll work, and not that difficult either.

Hope that helps and isn't a bunch of jargon. As well, if you want to Windows 7 beta right now is in beta and that's free so you could use that probably, although the offer may be gone by the time you start college, for any visual studio type stuff with vmware or parallels.
 
POLO said:
093401-new_white_macbook.png


If you are tight on a budget, they just updated the white MacBook!

- Processor moved to 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo with 1066 MHz frontside bus from 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo with 866 MHz bus
- Standard RAM increased to 2 GB (two 1 GB sticks) from 1 GB (two 512 MB sticks)
- Graphics switched to NVIDIA 9400M with 256 MB of shared memory from Intel GMA X3100 with 144 MB of shared memory
- Bluetooth version updated to 2.1 from 2.0.
- 320 GB, 5400-rpm hard drive option added
Click to expand...

I loved my BlackBook, and my girlfriend loved her White MacBook, but now we both have unibody machines, oh man, forget about the older build style, it's worth the premium.

Did you know there's a screw on the left side of that machine that doesn't go into anything simply for the sake of symmetry?... really?...
 
Optional87 said:
I loved my BlackBook, and my girlfriend loved her White MacBook, but now we both have unibody machines, oh man, forget about the older build style, it's worth the premium.

Did you know there's a screw on the left side of that machine that doesn't go into anything simply for the sake of symmetry?... really?...
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Symmetry is very Feng shui and though I dont worship Apple could appreciate what they did there!
 
So, instead of having a solid firm side panel, the chose to make it very flimsy and spongy, where as the other side, where that screw actually does something is perfectly firm in place? They couldn't have included something there where the screw went in the case? I know there's space... I've been inside of these machines quite a few times..
 
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