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Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#111

Post by 1996 »

ratww wrote: post #84
1996 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have laptops with 64 and 32Gb of RAM, but I found my best work happens with 8Gb of RAM. I can't exactly explain how or why, but it seems to enforces discipline by reducing task (and context) switching - so much that I got myself another laptop with 4Gb.

My favourite development machine is still my 9 year old Air with 4GB. I mostly do frontend, a bit of Rails and some of GameDev with C++. It forces me to use lightweight tools (like Sublime) and it works like a charm. One advantage of having it is that the company I work for has a very international and diverse user base, but gives us developers super modern machines. Some developers tend to overgineer and cause perfo…

> Some developers tend to overgineer and cause performance issues on slower computers. With an older laptop I can understand better how the app will be perceived by users.

Exactly this. It forces me to optimize instead of taking shortcuts.

But the #1 effect is on focus: I can't have many tabs open and procrastinate.

8Gb is ideal for me. I'll see how it goes with 4Gb.

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#112

Post by 1996 »

ATsch wrote: post #32
1996 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have laptops with 64 and 32Gb of RAM, but I found my best work happens with 8Gb of RAM. I can't exactly explain how or why, but it seems to enforces discipline by reducing task (and context) switching - so much that I got myself another laptop with 4Gb.

This reads like an apple user parody.

This is serious. A constrained environment helps me focus and think more creatively.

The only think I'll never skimp on is storage. In 2018 I standardized on 2Tb SSDs in raid0.

I'm currently upgrading to 4Tb (as I can't find much larger)

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#113

Post by joubert »

kcartlidge wrote: post #107
joubert wrote: post #76

Mac Mini, 16GB RAM. Managed to compile FreePascal and Lazarus for M1 (aarch64); was fairly straight forward. I’ve been playing / prototyping with FPC/Lazarus over the holidays so it’s nice to run without Rosetta. Compiles are super fast, but of course fpc/Lazarus is pretty quick already. ;-)

Shout out for FPC/Lazarus - so underrated, and too often ignored. Like Delphi, but for free. If you want native binary GUI apps for multiple platforms it's great. And I can confirm it works very well indeed on the M1 MacBook Air 8GB base model too (for developing apps; I didn't need to compile the toolchain personally).

Yeah I didn’t have to compile fpc/Lazarus for it to run on M1 (it works just fine), it is just that I wanted to give it a try!

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#114

Post by bluewalt »

Dangeranger wrote: post #62

My experience has been quite good, Mac Mini M1, 8GB RAM. It's very fast while running many applications, no CPU throttling, excellent thermal control. - VS Code Insiders works well for Web, Nodejs, and Ruby. - iTerm, Alfred, and Dash all work as expected. - Homebrew support is excellent. - Only a few issues with needing to re-install updated Ruby gems or Nodejs packages due to incompatibility issues from native C ext…

But you own the mini, so you can use 2 external monitors right?

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#115

Post by gabereiser »

kcartlidge wrote: post #109
gabereiser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuck on a docker tech preview on my M1, it works but only with arm64 images. Docker for me is the main crux to get me to use the M1 as my daily driver. Python works fine, node as well, but I don’t like modifying my environment and like to encapsulate it in docker (docker everything) and so far I’m not 100%. Docker works like I said, but it’s still a WIP and all. I think Q2/Q3 of this year we’ll see more mainline sup…

Docker with Intel images = `--platform linux/amd64`

I probably need to upgrade :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#116

Post by throwaway888abc »

1996 wrote: post #25
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #11

Also M1 owners, I would also like to know how much 8/16 GB memory has affected your workflow/productivity assuming you previously had at least 32GB RAM? e.g. Those who never closed their apps before, kept several browsers with several dozen tabs, Note taking apps, IDE, VM etc. all the time. Is lighting fast opening of apps on M1 = Never having to close the apps in any machine with large RAM?

I have laptops with 64 and 32Gb of RAM, but I found my best work happens with 8Gb of RAM. I can't exactly explain how or why, but it seems to enforces discipline by reducing task (and context) switching - so much that I got myself another laptop with 4Gb.

Offtopic, but same apply to internet usage. Limit your self and you will be more productive.

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#117

Post by hnbear »

tyingq wrote: post #51
kylec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's available now, you just have to select the 16GB option when speccing it

That's interesting. The page really makes it seem like 8GB is the only choice. https://www.apple.com/us-hed/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini It doesn't say "8 or 16GB" and the button is "Select", and not "Customize" or similar. Appreciate the pointer.

Select it, then it takes you to the page to customize - you can add more RAM, more disk, AppleCare, and accessories.

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#118

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

blunte wrote: post #24
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #11

Also M1 owners, I would also like to know how much 8/16 GB memory has affected your workflow/productivity assuming you previously had at least 32GB RAM? e.g. Those who never closed their apps before, kept several browsers with several dozen tabs, Note taking apps, IDE, VM etc. all the time. Is lighting fast opening of apps on M1 = Never having to close the apps in any machine with large RAM?

TL;DR: 16GB is enough for most use cases on Intel Macs, so it should be as good or better on M1 Macs. In my experience with 16GB Intel Macs for years, I have never had memory problems. I'm sure there are some large data migration cases which could make it a problem, but for my typical development (1-3 instances of a JetBrains IDE open, PostgreSQL and MySQL servers running, Docker running, sometimes even VirtualBox ru…

They key is whether you come from a workflow > 16GB intel mac, if you already had your workflow tuned for 16GB or lesser then you'll not find any issues w.r.t lack of memory.

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#119

Post by erichsu »

When it works, it’s a dream. Fast, cool. Rosetta 2 works quickly and well. I’ve found M1 builds for things like ffmpeg, VS Code, TeX.

The #1 problem is external monitor support. I use a Seiki 4K monitor. If you unplug it, the laptop regularly becomes unresponsive and kerneltask eats all your cycles. If it sleeps with a monitor on and wakes with it off, that’s almost a sure beach ball.

Rumors are that a fix is coming, but you never know. You can see from the other comments that in general external monitor support is erratic, and that’s very bad for a 13” laptop. I’ve taken to rebooting between monitor unplugs. Very obnoxious and I’m infuriated having to do it.

But then when it all works, it’s pretty sweet, so all is forgiven. So basically, it’s a slightly abusive relationship. Buyer beware.

Re: Ask HN: How do you like developing on an M1 Mac so far?

#120

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

photokandy wrote: post #44
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #11

Also M1 owners, I would also like to know how much 8/16 GB memory has affected your workflow/productivity assuming you previously had at least 32GB RAM? e.g. Those who never closed their apps before, kept several browsers with several dozen tabs, Note taking apps, IDE, VM etc. all the time. Is lighting fast opening of apps on M1 = Never having to close the apps in any machine with large RAM?

My perspective: Going from a 2019 15" MacBook Pro with 16GB of memory to an 8GB M1 13" MacBook Pro You don't start to feel the 8GB until you: * have a lot of tabs open in Safari (like ~30+) * have heavy web apps (GMail & Outlook, I'm looking at you) * run a virtual machine (Only so much you can give a Parallels instance w/ 8GB) * run some known performance & memory hogs (Slack, Teams, etc.) * vpn seems to slow things…

This is so far(04:13:32 UTC) the best answer to my question, just because most other comments seems to be 'I use 16GB, so it should be fine' disregarding 'assuming you previously had at least 32GB RAM' part of the question.

Thank you for your time writing this detailed comment.

Few things which caused degraded performance were obvious e.g. tabs, VM.

But things which surprised me,

> * vpn seems to slow things down a bit

With great single core performance and WiFi-6 I would have expected networking to fine.

> Bluetooth mice -- ugh.

Digging further, Bluetooth/WiFi/USB issues seems to documented by others as well[1] unfortunately these gets buried under other reviews following a common narrative for M1 macs.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xyFIF9jA5w

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