Should I update my dev machine to the latest Mac OS?
September 21, 2017 8:57 AM Subscribe
I'm a web developer (mostly python). Is there a good reason to update to High Sierra?
I'm currently on El Capitan 10.11.6 on a 2013 MB Pro Retina. It works fine. Most of my day to day work involves Python, Pycharm, Django, Anaconda, Pandas, Jupyter, Git, etc.
Is there any good reason to update? A solid one not to?
I use Android phones, so iOS integration is not a thing for me.
I've read about the new filesystem, supposed to be faster? My laptop is fast enough, Pycharm lags sometimes when reindexing, so I guess that could be a plus if it actually made a difference.
I'm currently on El Capitan 10.11.6 on a 2013 MB Pro Retina. It works fine. Most of my day to day work involves Python, Pycharm, Django, Anaconda, Pandas, Jupyter, Git, etc.
Is there any good reason to update? A solid one not to?
I use Android phones, so iOS integration is not a thing for me.
I've read about the new filesystem, supposed to be faster? My laptop is fast enough, Pycharm lags sometimes when reindexing, so I guess that could be a plus if it actually made a difference.
"Wait till the .1" is always decent advice for Mac OS updates, and based on reports from beta testers, it definitely applies here: e.g. if you have a discrete Nvidia GPU, there are still a lot of issues with the High Sierra drivers, and the need to get the OS released for iOS 11 integration means it's coming in hot w/r/t bugs. APFS will be more robust and faster for certain operations (large-file duplication in particular) and reclaim a bit of disk space currently used by HFS+ crud, but you may be dealing more with I/O bottlenecks than filesystem lag.
So I'd say update eventually, but wait for now. You can get Safari 11 for El Cap if you need to do front-end testing / developer console work.
posted by holgate at 9:30 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
So I'd say update eventually, but wait for now. You can get Safari 11 for El Cap if you need to do front-end testing / developer console work.
posted by holgate at 9:30 AM on September 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's going to force you to change the format of your drive to APFS during the upgrade. This is a pretty big change. It went OK on iOS, but the range of hardware and configuration targeted by a macOS upgrade is much broader. And for whatever reason, Apple can't get APFS working on Fusion drives, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Personally I'm waiting for other people to find the problems and will look again next year.
posted by caek at 9:59 AM on September 21, 2017
posted by caek at 9:59 AM on September 21, 2017
On a dev machine, I'd agree with everyone else—wait for the bugs to be shaken out, especially with a change to the file system. In the meantime, I'd go to the App store and download the installer for 10.12 since it will no longer be available after the release of 10.13. Support for previous OS' tends to fall by the wayside once they're two versions back. That'd give you a means to update to more recent OS without committing whole-hog to the new one, if necessary.
I've got over 15 years of experience as a Mac hardware/software tech, but this is the first time I've ever thought, hm, best wait. HFS was introduced back in 1985, updated in 1998 to HFS+, and then had journaling added in 10.3 in 2003, IIRC. That's it. This is their first entirely new file system released to the public in 30 years. My faith in Apple's engineers is probably greater than many people, since I've been watching their every development from a somewhat intimate and unique perspective—tearing their machines down daily—but even this gives me pause. I'm always gung-ho, but this time…yeah, the .1 update at least sounds wise.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:37 AM on September 21, 2017
I've got over 15 years of experience as a Mac hardware/software tech, but this is the first time I've ever thought, hm, best wait. HFS was introduced back in 1985, updated in 1998 to HFS+, and then had journaling added in 10.3 in 2003, IIRC. That's it. This is their first entirely new file system released to the public in 30 years. My faith in Apple's engineers is probably greater than many people, since I've been watching their every development from a somewhat intimate and unique perspective—tearing their machines down daily—but even this gives me pause. I'm always gung-ho, but this time…yeah, the .1 update at least sounds wise.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:37 AM on September 21, 2017
That should probably read 'more faith in Apple's software and hardware engineers than most.' I don't want to imply I think their hardware engineers are developing file systems.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:42 AM on September 21, 2017
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 10:42 AM on September 21, 2017
I'm another strong supporter of waiting for the .1 of any macOS version. Seconding grabbing the installer for Sierra now though, so you can step through each version one at a time if needed when you finally do update.
After I update I always seem to have some sort of dev-environment related hiccup, so be aware you may need to reinstall a couple things via homebrew (assuming you use it), and of course you'll need to download the new version of the xcode command-line dev tools eventually.
As an aside, all Jetbrains products seem to lag when indexing. I've used IntelliJ, Pycharm, PhpStorm, WebStorm, and they all do it... it's not your machine, it's just the sheer amount of disk I/O that's going on. I don't have high hopes for APFS to fix that, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised?
posted by cgg at 12:59 PM on September 21, 2017
After I update I always seem to have some sort of dev-environment related hiccup, so be aware you may need to reinstall a couple things via homebrew (assuming you use it), and of course you'll need to download the new version of the xcode command-line dev tools eventually.
As an aside, all Jetbrains products seem to lag when indexing. I've used IntelliJ, Pycharm, PhpStorm, WebStorm, and they all do it... it's not your machine, it's just the sheer amount of disk I/O that's going on. I don't have high hopes for APFS to fix that, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised?
posted by cgg at 12:59 PM on September 21, 2017
I have not yet seen a compelling reason to upgrade, and with MacOS upgrades, I have learned the lesson over many iterations that you do not upgrade until there's a damn good reason to do it.
APFS sounds interesting but I don't want to be the guy helping to iron out bugs in their filesystem implementation's corner cases for free. On a personal machine, if you have backups, okay sure go nuts. But I don't know of anyone who is rushing to upgrade a production/work machine yet.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:13 PM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
APFS sounds interesting but I don't want to be the guy helping to iron out bugs in their filesystem implementation's corner cases for free. On a personal machine, if you have backups, okay sure go nuts. But I don't know of anyone who is rushing to upgrade a production/work machine yet.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:13 PM on September 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Well, I wouldn't recommend going straight from El Cap to High Sierra. Sierra has been out for a while now; maybe upgrade to that for now?
posted by destructive cactus at 7:24 PM on September 21, 2017
posted by destructive cactus at 7:24 PM on September 21, 2017
Response by poster: For reference, I updated yesterday, so far no problems.
posted by signal at 5:32 AM on February 19, 2018
posted by signal at 5:32 AM on February 19, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by rockindata at 9:23 AM on September 21, 2017