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Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

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Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#131

Post by wilsonnb »

TimmyMustGo wrote: post #62
ATsch wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a x230 with the biggest battery. It's decently thick/heavy compared to the modern ultra-slim laptops, but it's compact, fast enough and it set me back barely over 300€ total and the battery lasts 9+ hours. It sounds like budget is not your problem, but I thought I'd just mention this for any students etc. passing by.

I use a x220 because it has a better keyboard. I'm limited to USB2 but honestly I never use them except for my mouse and iOS devices, which are limited to USB2 speeds anyway. But I'm able to hook it up to dual external 1080p monitors. Cost me less than US$100.

If you get the x220 with an i7 it comes with a single USB 3, in case anyone is looking to purchase one.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#132

Post by gmemstr »

cozzyd wrote: post #95
ponco wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people still write code that is compiled.

And the people who do that tend to use super bloated Dev environments.

> super bloated dev environments

Care to give some examples of this? I've been using compiled languages for a while now and I've never felt my environment had been "bloated".

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#133

Post by wilsonnb »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #99
cagenut wrote: post #28

I've been using my Samsung Chromebook Plus for about a year now, and the answer is a fairly clear: no. Everything about it is just sluggish and laggy. The opposite of snappy. This is compounded by the fact that the AWS and GCP web interfaces I spend a lot of time in aren't exactly lightweight, but that's the work. The SSH client is similarly just ever so slightly off. In terms of just compatibility pains, don't even…

That's not a fault of Chromebooks themselves but the ARM CPU. Except for Apple, no one can pull off desktop class ARM right now. The Pixelbook and the Chromebook Pixels before that have excellent performance for developers. I'm sure a Chromebook Pro would have been a good choice for a workhorse as well.

I'd wait until they release a MacBook running on ARM to declare Apples chips as desktop class.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#134

Post by ajross »

cpach wrote: post #100
O_H_E wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it is insanely slow https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=wsl-febr... https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/7knl...

Strange. I’ve never noticed that.

It's fine for casual use and CPU- or network-bound tasks. But anything involving lots of filesystem operations (like, heh, building software) is just a mess. The project I'm working on right now is a biggish C tree using cmake/ninja that still builds in 3-20 seconds (depending on configuration) on my dual core laptop but takes 90+ on a quad core skylake under WSL.

But for the simple case of "I need to ssh around or pull some files with curl or check something out from github or whatever and I don't have my linux box" it works great.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#135

Post by mattbreeden »

jchw wrote: post #118
tannhaeuser wrote: post #42

I don't understand the authors choice to limit himself to Apple or Google. You've been able to do development on Linux notebooks (and Windows notebooks, of course) since decades. I can absolutely recommend Dell (and ThinkPad, though not from personal experience) notebooks with Ubuntu preinstalled/officially supported. Or is the question if a Chromebook is en vogue to use this season at Starbucks?

Dell XPS series looks fantastic from the outside, but there are a few things that stop me from wanting one, that I've mostly observed from other owners of XPS laptops, having not owned one myself. 1. The keyboard. It's apparently not so bad once you get used to it, but compared to typing on my Thinkpad I find myself unhappy with it; it feels spongier in comparison, and the key travel is pretty short (though not nearl…

> 1. The keyboard. It's apparently not so bad once you get used to it, but compared to typing on my Thinkpad I find myself unhappy with it; it feels spongier in comparison, and the key travel is pretty short (though not nearly as bad as the Apple butterfly switches.)

I think I may be more sensitive to this than most, but the keyboard is absolutely not okay. I had the Dell XPS 13 for over a year, and I could not actually use it as a laptop because the keys brought my fingers such excruciating pain. I could only use it with an external keyboard attached. Previously I had the old generation Macbook air which caused me pain in only one finger (pinky, I think from hitting Ctrl too much), and currently I have a Razer Blade which is a bit uncomfortable on all of my fingers, but not even CLOSE to how bad the XPS 13 was.

I also own a Dell Chromebook 13 and have zero finger pain when using it, the keyboard is a dream. Had some coworkers with Thinkpads, and their keyboards also felt fine to type on (better than the Air, worse than the chromebook)

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#136

Post by mattbreeden »

IanCal wrote: post #63
mhluongo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XPS 13 user here, big fan

Counterpoint here, XPS 13 user, hate it. Worst coil whine I've heard on anything, fan sounds like it's catching, WiFi on Ubuntu very unreliable. Trackpad is atrocious. I think it varies a lot between models.

XPS 13 owner. Had none of those issues, but the keyboard was 100% unusable for me (no hyperbole). Caused so much pain in my fingers I could only use it with an external keyboard attached, defeating the point of it being a laptop.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#137

Post by mattbreeden »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #57
namanyayg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has your experience been with battery and portability? I'm leaning towards buying a new laptop that I can carry around comfortably. I'm comfortable with remotely working on a more powerful PC if needed. Any models you'd recommend? I much rather would pick anything else over a MacBook.

I've got a Dell XPS 13", and I'm absoluting loving it; especially the keyboard works great for me as a touch typist/vi user, which I didn't expect since the keyboard is what ThinkPads are acclaimed for. That said, battery mileage is no match to Apple notebooks in my experience. I can get 3 to 4 hours max, though I'm occasionally doing CPU-intense stuff which will reduce this to 1-2 hours. If Apple actually would prod…

> I've got a Dell XPS 13", and I'm absoluting loving it; especially the keyboard works great for me as a touch typist/vi user

This is insane to me. My XPS 13 caused me excruciating pain to type on. I try to warn people every chance I get. Hurt my fingers more than any laptop I've ever used, to the point where I could not even use the laptop keyboard, I would only use it with an external keyboard.

Best keyboards I've used was my Dell Chromebook 13, followed by coworkers thinkpads.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#138

Post by wilsonnb »

swerveonem wrote: post #22

That is a funny question, I've been writing code for 10 years and have used a variety of hardware. At no point has the host OS limited my productivity. I even used an old ThinkPad with a broken trackpad for a while during a particularly poor period of my life. Once you learn to use the terminal and stop being a GUIwarrior, you will have an easier life.

Once you know how to use both GUIs and the terminal you will have an easier life. They both have their place. If you're developing a Windows app, you should probably use visual studio. If you're doing basic web development then the terminal makes more sense.

Re: Ask HN: Are Chromebooks ready for serious development?

#140

Post by ATsch »

TimmyMustGo wrote: post #62
ATsch wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a x230 with the biggest battery. It's decently thick/heavy compared to the modern ultra-slim laptops, but it's compact, fast enough and it set me back barely over 300€ total and the battery lasts 9+ hours. It sounds like budget is not your problem, but I thought I'd just mention this for any students etc. passing by.

I use a x220 because it has a better keyboard. I'm limited to USB2 but honestly I never use them except for my mouse and iOS devices, which are limited to USB2 speeds anyway. But I'm able to hook it up to dual external 1080p monitors. Cost me less than US$100.

note that you can also use the x220 keyboard in the x230.

x220 keyboards are a bit hard to source for a good price, though.

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