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Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#51

Post by ObsoleteNerd »

sudders wrote: post #10

I had to switch to a new laptop last year after my old MBP first generation retina died. I couldn't justify the price, the specs and the keyboard of a new MBP anymore and after much deliberation I chose a $1200 HP Spectre x360. I do mostly web development work (Ember.js, PHP and Node), and after running Win10 for a few weeks and hating the performance (especially for Node). I installed Ubuntu Budgie, and have been sm…

Any problems with the touch screen working in Ubuntu? Can you still use the pen to sketch in drawing programs etc?

I need a good Linux-friendly laptop with touch screen for sketching as well as code dev, so I'm very curious about this one.

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#52

Post by hluska »

Razengan wrote: post #29
hluska wrote: post #3

I recently went through the new laptop experience. When it came down to it, I couldn't justify spending the money on an MBP that would meet my needs. My decision came down to a few things: 1.) I hate the touch bar and you can pry the function keys out of my cold, dead hands. (I like saying that.) 2.) To get an MBP that will provide enough power for me, I'd need to upgrade to a touch bar only model. 3.) MBPs are serio…

> To get an MBP with similar performance to those other machines, I would have to pay approximately $1,000 more. Examples? MBPs have been reported to have the fastest SSDs on the market since 2016 [0], and I doubt you can get laptops with the same resolution and wide color gamut for much cheaper. [0] https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/

MBPs do have great SSDs, but I don't particularly care about (or optimize for) resolution or colour.

If you remove those from the mix, there are many examples. The Dell XPS series, higher end Zenbooks, and Lenovo Ideapads all beat the MBP.

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#53

Post by austhrow743 »

unstablevacuum wrote: post #15

The attraction of programmers to macOS née OS X has always been its UNIX foundations. Programmers love UNIX. Programmers made UNIX for programmers. Unfortunately, from the epoch until very recently, UNIX has had GUIs ranging in quality from absolute shit to mediocre. That's finally changing with Free Desktop (Wayland + GNOME/KDE, and support libraries). OS X gave programmers a UNIX core with a beautiful user interfac…

My favourite UX aspect of OSX is how spotlight works with searching for applications.

If the application isn't already open, it launches it. If the application is already open, it brings it to the foreground.

In contrast on windows, the search bar seems to just be a launcher. In that if the application is already open and you search for it, it opens a second copy. As far as I could find, this behaviour isn't changeable.

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to get osx's search style on any of the nice gui having Linux variants?

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#54

Post by dan0- »

austhrow743 wrote: post #53
unstablevacuum wrote: post #15

The attraction of programmers to macOS née OS X has always been its UNIX foundations. Programmers love UNIX. Programmers made UNIX for programmers. Unfortunately, from the epoch until very recently, UNIX has had GUIs ranging in quality from absolute shit to mediocre. That's finally changing with Free Desktop (Wayland + GNOME/KDE, and support libraries). OS X gave programmers a UNIX core with a beautiful user interfac…

My favourite UX aspect of OSX is how spotlight works with searching for applications. If the application isn't already open, it launches it. If the application is already open, it brings it to the foreground. In contrast on windows, the search bar seems to just be a launcher. In that if the application is already open and you search for it, it opens a second copy. As far as I could find, this behaviour isn't changeab…

I rather like Gnome on Debian, the hot corners and search are slick IMO. Never had to use OS X, but the UX is somewhat similar from what I hear.

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#55

Post by dan0- »

om42 wrote: post #25
cheriot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the difference became battery life. It's been a few years since I ran linux on a laptop; has that improved?

It has! I've been using Ubuntu on a thinkpad x1 carbon (2017) for almost a year. Battery life is between 6-8 hours everyday use including work. Probably see between 8-10 if I'm not doing any programming

Similar experience on a Thinkpad T440 with a 1080p screen swap, I can easily go 5 hours before I need to swap to the big battery, which buys ne a few more hours. Games seem to halve that though...

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#56

Post by Razengan »

hluska wrote: post #52
Razengan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To get an MBP with similar performance to those other machines, I would have to pay approximately $1,000 more. Examples? MBPs have been reported to have the fastest SSDs on the market since 2016 [0], and I doubt you can get laptops with the same resolution and wide color gamut for much cheaper. [0] https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/01/2016-macbook-pro-ssd/

MBPs do have great SSDs, but I don't particularly care about (or optimize for) resolution or colour. If you remove those from the mix, there are many examples. The Dell XPS series, higher end Zenbooks, and Lenovo Ideapads all beat the MBP.

So it’s disingenuous to claim “similar performance” by arbitrarily removing metrics from the mix.

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#58

Post by lylecubed »

danielvf wrote: post #5

I’ve use Mac laptops as my primary work machine since the nineties. This year, with the MacBook Pro problems, and noticing that I was almost always working from my home office these days, I got a 5k iMac instead of a new laptop. I’m delighted with iMac. The monitor is amazing, and it has quite a bit more horsepower than a comparable Mac laptop.

That's the exact reason I built a Hackintosh last year. I haven't rocked one of those since 2005.

A big part of that decision wasn't just that the Macbook Pros have become unreliable. The entire field of modern laptops are unsuitable to me (and I would guess to most power users). The race to the bottom in terms of consumer laptops is now complete. I wonder what's next.

Re: Ask HN: Is the new MacBook Pro worth its value for a developer?

#60

Post by tortasaur »

Razengan wrote: post #56
hluska wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MBPs do have great SSDs, but I don't particularly care about (or optimize for) resolution or colour. If you remove those from the mix, there are many examples. The Dell XPS series, higher end Zenbooks, and Lenovo Ideapads all beat the MBP.

So it’s disingenuous to claim “similar performance” by arbitrarily removing metrics from the mix.

On the contrary, it's disingenuous to act like resolution or color are metrics of "performance" when the colloquial usage of the word generally refers to processing speed and memory capacity. I/O speed would qualify, but is only one metric; it is correct to say it is outperformed by other machines at lower price points when accounting for the CPU and RAM.
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