Ask HN: What is your primary development machine? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#51

Post by wonnage » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 12:14 AM UTC

I'm surprised nobody mentioned a Thinkpad! I code in vim and the trackpoint is awesome for the few blasphemous times I have to use the mouse.

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#52

Post by drongo » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 12:27 AM UTC

Pewpewarrows wrote: post #5

Currently using a netbook with Ubuntu 11.04 on it. Absolutely hating that I updated, because Unity is just barely able to run on it. I'm in the middle of a few projects, otherwise I'd take the time to either try out Unity 2D or go for something like Arch or Fedora. But, I've already decided to pick-up a Macbook Air as soon as the product line is refreshed. I _want_ to like Linux on the "desktop" and continue using it…

I hate Unity too, it's really ugly. I just disabled it - and now Ubuntu looks nice again :)

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#53

Post by watmough » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 5:03 AM UTC

Old iMac, which is going to need to be replaced for post-iOS 4 development. I think it will have been my longest serving box ever, going on 4 years now, though the Mac Mini hooked to the TV is just a tad older.

Still using my day 1 MacBook, though much of it has been replaced at one time or another. Just a surfing and occasional light dev machine.

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#54

Post by berntb » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:06 AM UTC

bhousel wrote: post #34

berntb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The applications just aren't even close to being where I'd need them to be I am a Mac/Linux user. My application problem is the opposite -- apt on Ubuntu is much less pain than port on the Mac.

Use homebrew instead of macports for Mac. I think it took me less time to completely uninstall everything that macports did and reinstall as homebrew packages, than it would have taken to just 'port update' a typical macports package.

Sigh, the world totally changes if you turn your back a year while writing a hobby project, move to another country and so on... :-)

Thanks for the reference, it looks good.

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#55

Post by andrewcooke » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:14 AM UTC

jfoutz wrote: post #21

The top three most important features: 1.SSD 2.SSD 3.SSD It's amazing. If you're contemplating getting a new machine, you can probably get by with adding an SSD. They're incredible.

yup. was going to replace my aging x60. tried out an ssd and it's rocking like new.

[this is for personal work - python apps, web pages etc - for "real work" where i often need to run several vms, i have a nice little shoe-box-sized "desktop" with sub-100W amd 6 core, 2.5" raid + ssd, etc]

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#56

Post by alex3t » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 10:29 AM UTC

Macbook Pro over then 3 years but plan buy iMac(performance is better for me, I want keep open: RubyMine(for ror projects), AppCode(for iOS)(both java based apps) + mysql server + postgres server, also chrome with 10-20 tabs + firefox(for development I like firebug) + skype etc)

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#57

Post by saturnisbig » Wed, Jul 06, 2011, 3:25 PM UTC

Linux Laptop windows laptop

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#58

Post by moquo » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 1:50 AM UTC

FreeBSD in Thinkpad

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#59

Post by bsphil » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 5:49 AM UTC

Windows 7 laptop. 23" external monitor for when I'm at home.

Re: Ask HN: What is your primary development machine?

#60

Post by wurf » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 10:47 AM UTC

The real blocker for using a Mac as a development machine is the case insensitve filesystem HFS. Nothing causes more havoc than renaming CamelHumpsAreOK.java to CamelHumpsAreOk.java. People will be blocked for hours when pulling a change like this from the repository.