The author points to using grep and Xargs and some other tools to quickly update a package. That's the key here. These bash/Linux utilities are productivy boosters for all the Linux and Mac/bsd people out there. I can't imagine living without them and they're necessary for any system I develop on (which is currently a Mac).
For devs that do heavy Linux work (but have stuck with a Mac OS for GUI/app reasons), is it time to move (back) to Windows? If so, what would be a good laptop to get at the moment?
Every year I try a switch to Linux desktop. This year I made it as far as trying to get multiple monitors working well. I also dabbed in gaming. In the end I went back to my work=Mac game=Windows duopoly.
Better Desktop environment Better Package Management More Up to date packages
Some of my knowledge of OS X is likely outdated I haven't used it since 2011
I started using Linux when I was at University late 90's early 00's (Mandrake was my first distro). I switched to OS X around 2005 and used it as my primary operating system for about 5 years.
I used OS X because I'd purchased a MacBook Pro (mostly for the hardware) I still think Macbooks are the nicest laptops I've used to this day I went through 3 iterations of Macbooks before I stopped using OS X. I used OS X because it was good enough but I never fell in love with it.
I absolutely hated the desktop environment, silly things like no ability to customise anything, lack of workspaces, having to hit command q to kill application (because the 'x' button wouldn't close them properly) stuff like that. Workspaces came in a later OS X update which addressed some of my gripes.
It was never easy to install third party packages and libraries in OS X. I think this has improved now, when I used OS X it it was a mess (especially compared to the ease of something like apt). The native system packages were always really ancient - old version of GCC, old version of emacs, python etc. Trying to install newer version of these 'default' packages was not straightforward at all I remember having huge issues getting python 3 working.
Nowadays I run Fedora very happy with it. Not compelled at all to switch back. Linux support for modern laptops is a lot better than it was when I first started using Macs.
My current job is in an 'enterprisey' environment I'm forced to use a locked down version of windows here. Almost anything would be better.