This is from a dev standpoint but at my job we're using MySQL and I develop from Linux. When I want to browse or modify data with a GUI nothing quite matches OS X's Sequel Pro.

The best I've found is DBeaver (or SQuirrel). IntelliJ is working on a thing called 0xDBE, but it feels even worse.

I could easily rattle off a handful of other applications that just feel better, even if slightly, on OS X. DaisyDisk and Transmit come to mind right away.

I'm a dev that uses Windows at work for development and the Mac at home for development and at work for general use. I've been a Mac devotee since 1984.

For an IDE nothing beats the sheer joy of Visual Studio and ReSharper. I use NetBeans for Java (I prefer it over Eclipse and IntelliJ). For MySQL I use Sequel Pro on the Mac but prefer HeidiSQL on Windows. For Linux dev work I'll spin up a VM on Fusion on the Mac or VirtualBox on either.

My point? There's nothing you listed that requires you to use a Mac. I completely understand if you choose to, but there's no need to discount Windows in the process...it's a great development environment for anything but Swift and Objective-C.

Try MySQL Workbench - this is what I miss the most after switching to Postgres

> When I want to browse or modify data with a GUI nothing quite matches OS X's Sequel Pro.

I've moved the opposite way (Windows => OS X) and have used SQLYog Ultimate Edition [0] on Windows and like it a lot -- but find Sequel Pro underpowered and slower to use, and wish there was a better alternative.

0. https://www.webyog.com/product/sqlyog

I've never used Sequel Pro so I can't compare them, but I've been very happy with SQLyog, when I was working with MySQL.

If you ever need to use Postgres I recommend using the gui http://www.psequel.com/ which is a pretty decent port of Sequel Pro to the PG world.

SQLToad is unmatched on Windows IMO.

- Xcode

- Sketch

- Pixate

- Framer Studio

- iTerm

- Fluid

- Keynote

- Pages

- Quick cast

- Cloud App

Granted I haven't looked into a lot of these to see if they've picked up Linux or Window's support. However I doubt any of the one's I've listed are all on Linux, which I'd for sure need to do any development work.

Some of these I'm sure have alternatives but the one app I just can't do without is Sketch. Gimp doesn't compare and wine + photoshop hackery on Linux is a nightmare.

There's a pretty neat vector graphics app for Linux called Inkscape. I used it for some time when I worked on Linux and got used to it. Of course, I was happy when I could go back to Adobe Illustrator, but for a free app Inkscape is pretty great (and it's the only usable graphics app on Linux)

Side note but, not sure why anyone would bother with wine + hackery these days. Virtualbox works perfectly fine for running any Windows apps you "can't do without". Throwing a few gigs of RAM at running a Windows VM to run these apps is not really an issue if you have a modern rig.

More reliable approach for powerful machines, but for simple use cases Wine is fine:

- Only for a few apps, like Evernote. - Laptops on battery.

For Visual Studio I'd bet on VMs over Wine, but then I probably wouldn't be using Linux.

By "modern rig" are you including laptops? I've always been deathly afraid of running VMs on battery power; has this changed recently?

Nothing much has changed in the past couple of years. Wine is still a good go to option if your Windows application will work with it correctly.

Are you sure? Saying Xcode is only available for Mac is like saying "Visual Studio is only available for Windows, so I'll stick with Windows". I thought you'd come up with some movie maker stuff which might not be as good on Windows.

I used Xcode a few years back and it was a nightmare with the limited things it allowed me to do when compared to Visual Studio.

Really? You're going to pick out Xcode out of the whole list? I even clearly stated what the most important app I use is and it wasn't Xcode.

...however, if you're developing iOS and OSX apps you need Xcode. So I'm not sure what your point is.

XCode is a pretty good choice for writing Mac applications. I'm not aware of many accepted alternatives.

There really is only one–AppCode, and not really an alternative, because usually you end up using both.

My point is that you can really come out of these forced incompatibilities if you want. There are multiple IDEs to develop the same thing on Windows, but of course, Apple does not want that. That's why, the author of the article had to leave developing for them - in my very personal opinion, everyone should do that, in the hope that it will force Apple to strive for a common/universal development language.

Visual Studio and Microsoft Project mainly. But then Windows users don't get XCode.