I had a 13" air and loved it and did light dev on it (python scripts and java), last year I upgraded to a 13" MBP w/ retina and LOVE it. The price for everything on the macbook is ridiculous, not worth it at all if you are the one paying for it. If your work is going to pay for it then I don't know, I'm sure it will get the job done but I would rather have an air, for some reason when I was playing with the macbook at the Mac store when they came out, the keys on the macbook felt tiny and the machine seemed really flimsy, the screen is nice but besides that I didn't like it at all.