I have observed a lot of software engineers using Apple Macs for web development. But this is not the case in Australia, at least in my experience, probably because the emphasis is more on building for enterprise on top of Microsoft technologies. But being adventurous, I chose about 3 years ago to get an Apple Mac and try out programming on it. My focus has mostly been iOS, targeting iPad and some Android. It has been interesting and rewarding experience that is certain, though my hope that my professional work would move in this direction has not occurred.

The opposite has actually occurred, I am fortunate to see my web technology skills being enhanced. So this post might be considered a checkpoint on where to next? There will always be some tension when determining how to align my interests with the skills required for the job market I work in. The rapid rate of change in web technologies has required me to focus my attention on JavaScript lately and the realisation that the enterprise market in Australia is heavily invested in Microsoft’s backend infrastructure and tooling.

So I’m curious to see ASP.NET being made available on Apple Mac, along with Visual Studio Code cross platform editor. Microsoft has stated a strong desire to participate in the open source world and the roots of that world are on Unix (Linux & Apple Mac), though iOS is a primary consumer market and Software Engineers targeting that market must be on an Apple Mac. I can speculate and say that it makes sense for Microsoft to put its tooling and backend technology onto the Apple Mac, with the intention of driving business to their Azure cloud platform.

Now I have to answer the question, where to next. I’ve stated I am spending time on the enterprise skills needed for this Australian market. This can be done on the Apple Mac, with an emphasis on front end web technologies and an exploration of emerging trends e.g. Isomorphic JavaScript. My learning can then be applied to the enterprise environment.