We link our files with absolute paths from the root of the web server. For example a css file called “style.css” would be loaded from “/css/style.css”. This means that if we use an alias, which is basically a folder in the document root, we would have to load files with relative paths instead of absolute paths. While this fairly easily doable, we like to minimize complexity in projects for the sake of clear teaching.
Currently we use MAMP because it allows new students to keep their css, js, and other assets loaded with absolute paths. When they finally upload the site to a web server it continues to work.
This is mostly a feature we think would be nice to have.