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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

#21

Post by ajuc »

I experienced exactly the same, when I started bringing pen and paper to bus driving to/from work and code on paper.

It is very different experience from coding with computer, and it results in better quality code, because I can't just run to "ensure" it works, I have to think it throught.

Also I tend to write less code, when each time I forget to add check before some line I have to rewrite whole function by hand.

In home I just check documentation for apis I didn't remembered, and type code into computer. Almost always it works after a few minutes of simple variable misspelings etc corrected.

Of course, this won't work so good with bloat oriented languages :)

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#22

Post by jacquesm »

SlyShy wrote: post #19
jacquesm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Impressive. Beware of any errors from that drive, check the smart data to make sure that you're not suffering soft errors that are being corrected now and that will leave you with a dead drive at some point in the future.

If the drive was spinning when it fell it all depends on the angle and the strength of the shock, if it was not spinning chances of not having any damage are much better.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#23

Post by csomar »

mapleoin wrote: post #10
csomar wrote: post #7

Nice Article. Just wanted to add as I have seen some people here and their saying that programming in a netbook is a joke. Yes, I agree that netbooks are slow and have a small screen, but they were good for me for JavaScript and HTML programming. Since I bought my netbook (3 months ago, LG x130), I have been using it heavily to browse the web, open and edit office documents, play games (and it runs well Age Of Methol…

I never imagined Age of Mythology as a game with such a long lifespan. I remember playing it about 6 years ago.

Yes, the game is old, but the new Age Of Empires versions sucks .Age Of Mythology is the best strategy game Microsoft has ever released.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#24

Post by elblanco »

Reminds me of the old demoscene days. Tran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pytel) was a legend for a while, programming fast, lightweight, mind blowing effects that ran really well on slow hardware. When it was revealed that he did all of his coding on slow, last gen hardware (at the time a 386sx when everybody else was on 486dx2s) he ascended into virtual demoscene godhood.

The point is that the constraints of his system forced him to code better rather than being lazy and relying on the hardware to carry him through the day.

(too bad the wikipedia page doesn't list Kaeon, his one man shooter than was revolutionary on PCs of the day).

edit here it is! https://www.mobygames.com/game/kaeon

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#25

Post by ianso »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #5

I wonder if this is another indication that some of the old practices from "back in the day" will come back, in some unexpected form. For example: I remember, back in the day, that in order to compile, I had to submit the compilation job to a batch queue running on a separate server. Usually, you got your "success" or "failure" message back within a half-hour. (Similarly, print jobs printed to a device in a locked ro…

That's an interesting point. I guess the compilation job queue, which itself sounds similar to punch cards through a mainframe, has its modern equivalent in running large MapReduce jobs or load tests on EC2... not something I would want to repeat too often during the dev cycle :-)

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#27

Post by jrockway »

wallflower wrote: post #26
goodmitton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience found the opposite to be true.

Eclipse was an impediment (in Scrum parlance) to our project

But probably a very minor one compared to the languages people use Eclispe to write.

Re: The advantages of programming on a small netbook

#30

Post by hopeless »

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.

It also depends on which "flavour" of Netbeans you use. Netbeans for Ruby (i.e., without the Java stuff) is really very responsive (although I don't need/use code completion).
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