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The advantages of programming on a small netbook

ianso.blogspot.com

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Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#11

Post by SlyShy »

I program and write exclusively on my Aspire these days.

Keyboard: I have small fingers, and I actually type faster on the netbook keyboard. The key distances are smaller, so I'm moving my fingers les.

Screen: I use a small font (Code Envy R at 10pt) and WMII, so I can fit a lot of code on the screen at once. I can also switch between windows extremely quickly, so it is relatively painless not to have all the code I'm working on, on screen at once.

Battery: I got the six cell battery, because I don't mind the extra weight (unless you have muscular dystrophy what difference does weight really make? It isn't like I have to hold this thing in the air while typing on it. ;) but I do love the seven and a half hour battery life. It also uses close to no power when on suspend (loses maybe 3% over two hours) so I just shut the lid whenever I'm not using it, and a charge lasts me the whole day.

Durability: I've dropped this thing off tables maybe seven times now. It doesn't care. It also spends most of its time in the small compartment of my backpack where it gets jostled all day.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#12

Post by dagw »

tomh- wrote: post #9
jergosh wrote: post #4

End of the world is nigh -- Netbeans is being referred to as 'lightweight IDE.'

Indeed, if Netbeans is 'lightweight' then E texteditor or notepad++ must be hardware accelerated by a dedicated chip :D. Netbeans has to be one of the slowest and most resource consuming IDE's I ever used.

Even Eclipse is fast and responsive compared to Netbeans

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#13

Post by jasonlotito »

tomh- wrote: post #9
jergosh wrote: post #4

End of the world is nigh -- Netbeans is being referred to as 'lightweight IDE.'

Indeed, if Netbeans is 'lightweight' then E texteditor or notepad++ must be hardware accelerated by a dedicated chip :D. Netbeans has to be one of the slowest and most resource consuming IDE's I ever used.

To be fair, E and notepad++ are not IDEs. IDEs are much more than syntax highlighting. And Netbeans has been working hard to improve performance. 6.9 Beta was released, and the Dev releases before that were doing better then 6.8 and earlier releases in the memory arena.

=)

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#14

Post by goodmitton »

dagw wrote: post #12
tomh- wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, if Netbeans is 'lightweight' then E texteditor or notepad++ must be hardware accelerated by a dedicated chip :D. Netbeans has to be one of the slowest and most resource consuming IDE's I ever used.

Even Eclipse is fast and responsive compared to Netbeans

My experience found the opposite to be true.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#16

Post by jacquesm »

SlyShy wrote: post #11

I program and write exclusively on my Aspire these days. Keyboard: I have small fingers, and I actually type faster on the netbook keyboard. The key distances are smaller, so I'm moving my fingers les. Screen: I use a small font (Code Envy R at 10pt) and WMII, so I can fit a lot of code on the screen at once. I can also switch between windows extremely quickly, so it is relatively painless not to have all the code I'…

With respect to it being dropped seven times now, do you have an SSD in there or a regular drive?

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#17

Post by ianso »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #8
borism wrote: post #2

I agree with the premise, but article doesn't at all seem to substantiate it. coding on a train? coding in your head while shopping for groceries? how is that related to notebook at all? same can be done with any laptop. no?

True, but the constraints of a netbook actually serve as an incentive to think things through rather than start right away with exploratory code. I recently coded a personal site (around 5,000 lines) almost entirely on an Acer Aspire One with a small display and a cramped keyboard, and I made sure I knew exactly what I wanted to write before sitting down (usually during lunchtime).

Yup, this point concerning the constraints is exactly what I meant to put across in the post - well put.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#18

Post by jacquesm »

I very much don't practice what I used to preach, which is to use a slow machine and a small screen in order to write software, it makes you write better code.

Fast machines make you lazy.

These days the stuff I write does not run on the machine it is written on at all so that's no longer a factor.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#19

Post by SlyShy »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
SlyShy wrote: post #11

I program and write exclusively on my Aspire these days. Keyboard: I have small fingers, and I actually type faster on the netbook keyboard. The key distances are smaller, so I'm moving my fingers les. Screen: I use a small font (Code Envy R at 10pt) and WMII, so I can fit a lot of code on the screen at once. I can also switch between windows extremely quickly, so it is relatively painless not to have all the code I'…

With respect to it being dropped seven times now, do you have an SSD in there or a regular drive?

Regular drive. Which made me queasy the first time I dropped it, after being used to the touchy hard drives in previous computers.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#20

Post by reginaldo »

I find it very simple to explain to my friends... If it runs nicely on my netbook, it will run pretty much anywhere. Also, there's another thing... While the keyboard is annoying at first, in the long run it makes typing faster, as the keys are closer to one another.
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