(Photo by Tianyi Ma on Unsplash)
Even though I have my issues with Apple's MacBooks(DONGLES!), I'm still pretty excited for the new ARM-based MacBook Pro. My current machine is nearing the end of its life, and I am on the prowl for an updated one.
And with posts like this one by MacRumors, indicating that the freaking ARM MacBook Air will outperform any existing Mac on a single-core, and on multi-core it wipes the floor with all of the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pros, I'm really blown away by the possible performance increases the new MacBook Pro would offer!
But beneath my excitement for the much-touted performance and battery-life improvements lurks the potential compatibility issues that switching to new silicon could bring.
Will I spend the money equivalent to a small countries GDP, and then sit with a spoiled-brat machine refusing to work with the icky libraries and tools I use on a daily basis? Also, would stuff I code on an ARM MBP work on my Intel & Linux servers?
Well, other developers have been wondering the same, and someone started a helpful issues thread on the Homebrew Github, with a list of popular libraries and tools, and if they work on the new Macs.
Here's 10 tools and libraries that, as-of 12 Nov 2020, are still not fully supported yet.
- Bash
- Cask
- Cocoapods
- Numpy
- Docker
- Openjdk (Gradle, Elasticsearch, React-Native, Android, Jenkins, Maven)
- Go (Kubernetes)
- MySQL
- Postgress
- Zsh
Those would be crucial to get working before I'd seriously consider forking out the cash for a new Mac. Let's watch this space.
Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or suggestions, follow and contact me on Twitter @RikNieu.
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