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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?

#71

Post by pfranz »

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…

If you're talking about an application launcher that's like Spotlight it sounds like Fedora 28 with Gnome 3 would work for you. I've literally only used it long enough to launch a Terminal, but I just confirmed it will switch back to Firefox instead of launching a second instance of Firefox. It also sounds like what Ubuntu has had for awhile with Unity desktop. Their launcher is called Dash.

If you're talking about file search, I'm not sure if they have them or how well they work. In macOS I tend to look for preference files or system files, so I usually avoid Spotlight for file search and I don't have much experience with the other two.

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

#72

Post by pfranz »

cheriot wrote: post #17
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…

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

I don't have any firsthand information, but I've heard power management has gotten a lot better for both Linux and Windows and the laptops advertise comparable hours (with reviews not calling them out on it). There are a few name-brand laptops that offer explicit support for Linux distros. Those might gave you a better idea of what to expect.

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

#73

Post by pfranz »

golangnews wrote: post #69

No. I own one and regret buying it. The fingerprint sensor is the only useful bit of the touch bar, missing esc key is annoying if you use vim, and the keyboard is pretty terrible, even if I hadn't seen different keys come off or come loose. Have another appointment to get it fixed next week.

I explicitly avoided the Touch Bar, so it sucks I had to get the lower specs and fewer ports. I already remap Caps Lock to Ctrl and after playing around the ESC would really bother me. The travel on the new keyboard grew on me pretty quickly, but after almost a year I think I'm getting double-letters on certain keys and I still really really hate the half-height arrow keys. It sounds so silly, but if they released a new version with fill-sized arrow keys and maybe one other gripe (like an updated camera--seriously, this is the same camera on my 6yo macbook) I'd sell this one and buy another. Otherwise I'll probably put up with this for a few years until I'm fed up and find a PC laptop I'm willing to live with...

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

#74

Post by pfranz »

en4bz wrote: post #24
barkingcat wrote: post #19

You don't need to buy new. I find this "new everything" by default to be very sad. As a developer, you'd be well served by a 2015 (if you like the old keyboard), 2016 or 2017 MacBook Pro. Why do you want to spend so much money to pay for Apple Corporate to get even wealthier? Even something like a certified refurbish machine will get you what you need (with full Apple warranty), AND leave you enough money for periphe…

Old laptops have old batteries that need to be replaced. Since it's Apple this will likely cost enough to justify buying new.

Last year I replaced my 2012 Macbook Pro that still had the original battery. I think it was approaching it's expected life of 1,000 cycles, but it was still at about 80% capacity. It still worked fine.

Most Apple batteries are about $130 to replace (when Apple had removable laptop batteries their lifespan was 200 cycles and new batteries cost about the same). The newer laptops might have more adhesive, but replacing the internal battery was ridiculously easy. https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service

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

#76

Post by pfranz »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #2

You can definitely get a cheaper PC laptop with similar (or actually better) specs. Examples: https://www.ebay.com/itm/273405851977 https://www.ebay.com/itm/153078138692 It's more of a choice of the OS, I feel like. I don't get how you can't simply copy files between a macbook and an iphone. With a PC it's trivial.

I'm curious, how do you copy files around? Between PCs I'd probably go for Dropbox first. To be a network share client in Windows 10 I go to the Network browser, then had to enable searching for network servers--I'm not sure how to serve files. I found the behavior kind of fickle...but it might be my hardware/network. The little I've seen of sending files over BlueTooth on any platform has been a miserable experience.

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

#77

Post by aequitas »

coldtea wrote: post #9

It's value is in (1) combing a no-fuss GUI and the ability to run most major proprietary apps with a UNIX underpinning. If you also want to combine that with multimedia work (serious photo and video editing, graphic and print design, DAW work, Linux is a no-player, you need either Windows or OS X. Yes, there's Inscape and a few other tools, but only outliers use them and you'll be missing on almost all major tools an…

Spot on, especially point 2. I hear people complaining all the time about how trackpads suck, but the apple trackpads just work so nice I can even comfortably game using them. I yet have to stumble upon another laptop with trackpad that just works.

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

#78

Post by sage76 »

I have had nothing but issues with my MBP. Within 2 years

It stopped booting for some hardware issue.

Both the speakers are screwed up

The charger is not working

2 of the 5 little dots where the charger connects are now blackened and expanded.

WORST PURCHASE EVER

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

#79

Post by drcongo »

Absolutely not. I have the top of the range 15" MacBook Pro and I despise it, it's without question the worst computer I've ever owned.

1. The Touch Bar is appalling if you're at all a touch typist. It puts destructive actions just an accidental brush of the finger tip away. 2. The keyboard is failing all over the place. My left command key has fallen off, and three keys occasionally stick resulting in double entries. 3. The trackpad is so big that there's nowhere to rest one hand while you scroll with the other, resulting in exposé happening when you're just trying to scroll a web page. 4. It crashes a LOT. I reckon roughly one kernel panic a week since I've owned it.

It's absolutely killed my confidence in Apple hardware and after owning Macs for over 20 years I doubt I'll ever buy a Mac again. It's made me a permanently angry person.

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

#80

Post by nostrademons »

barkingcat wrote: post #19

You don't need to buy new. I find this "new everything" by default to be very sad. As a developer, you'd be well served by a 2015 (if you like the old keyboard), 2016 or 2017 MacBook Pro. Why do you want to spend so much money to pay for Apple Corporate to get even wealthier? Even something like a certified refurbish machine will get you what you need (with full Apple warranty), AND leave you enough money for periphe…

I love my early-2015 MBP. Best computer I ever owned - it hits the sweet spot between processing power, screen space, weight, battery life, durability, and features. No major problems other than a slightly off-kilter hinge (coming from dropping it edge-on), and it gets a lot of (ab)use.

My next computer will likely be something Windows, though. Part of this is the horror stories I've heard about recent-model Macs, and part is because between this computer and my 2013 System76 Pangolin still working, I'll be able to cover all major OSes with it.

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