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Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

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Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#191

Post by Flankk »

ezfe wrote: post #146
usr1106 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivation is important for your work. I would not be motivated by using some closed source, walled garden product from a company with business practices I don't like. Linux is absolutely good enough to get most development work done without issue. Even if Macs might be a slightly smoother experience in some areas. I used to spend a lot of time to fiddle with Linux and my desktop in the past. You can do that if you w…

>I would not be motivated by using some closed source, walled garden product from a company with business practices I don't like. Most of the Development flow (and even most of the non-dev flow) happens in Open Source areas: - Safari - Apps you download, like VSCode - Command line tools The areas that aren't open source (The Calendar app, file browser) can be replaced as you choose. I won't tell you to use a Mac, I j…

That's a bit of a ridiculous argument. Xcode is not only closed source, it is required for publishing to the App Store. You can't modify the hardware or the software. It's a virtual prison.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#192

Post by noduerme »

This is probably an unpopular view, but I kind of use laptops as if they were terminals. If you want to spend $2k, I'd invest $1600 of that in a great desktop machine, and spend the other $400 on a cheap chromebook and tablets / keyboards / gizmos to log into it remotely.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#193

Post by JabavuAdams »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #57

serious question: what is the practical difference between MacOS and Linux? Do you have a habit of modifying your wifi drivers and recompiling the source? I am big on open source but have never felt my life was improved chasing dependencies vs just brew install ... I have never had a satisfactory battery + sleep/standby experience on a linux machine, vs a Mac I can leave unplugged for weeks and it wakes back up where…

My 2017 MacBookPro laptop swings from 12GB free to 600MB free back to 12GB for no apparent reason, while giving me warning notifications of low disk space that I can't turn off. The only reason I have 12 GB free instead of 3-4 is that I uninstalled a whole bunch of stuff so that I could actually do a Time Machine backup. Yes, I had to uninstall stuff in order to do a backup. Seems backwards.

These annoyances from the company that supposedly is obsessive about user experience make one feel helpless and frustrated.

Overall, Mac feels less janky from a GUI/visual point of view than Linux, but frankly I'm spending more and more time on Linux because it's just more predictable. Also lots of Raspberry Pi tinkering.

A rogue Windows update bricked my machine the day before an important deadline. This is just so unbelievably unacceptable that I can't believe we collectively put up with this nonsense.

Yes, default macOS is more aesthetically pleasing than default Linux, but the helplessness when something goes wrong ...

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#194

Post by weberer »

microtonal wrote: post #40
daenney wrote: post #18

The problem I run into with a lot of these is that their screens aren’t great. 1080p@60Hz and usually pretty terrible brightness makes them a bad fit for me as a travel companion, or even just working from my garden. It’s also annoying that some keep insisting on a barrel connector for charging instead of leveraging the USB-C port. As much as I appreciate the privacy and freedom enhancing aspects of some of these dev…

Dell XPSes are good too Unless you plan to put them into a bag or backpack suspended: With regards to transporting your laptop in a bag or backpack, safety should be your primary concern. You should always turn the laptop OFF [...] Under no circumstances should you leave a laptop powered on and in any sleep/hibernate/standby mode when placed in a bag, backpack, or in an overhead bin. The laptop will overheat as a res…

There's a BIOS setting you have to change in a lot of laptops nowadays. The default, power hungry sleep mode is usually labeled "S1" or "Windows modern standby". True sleep mode is often labeled "S3" or "Linux", confusingly enough.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#195

Post by faeriechangling »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #6

Second hand ThinkPad T series gets a lot of bang for the buck (maybe not as good as they used to be, but still good, repairable, generally upgradable and very available as ex-enterprise machines). Good matte displays, good hinges and great keyboards. Don't sweat the battery, they're removable, upgradeable to larger ones if you have to go a longer time on a charge and easy to replace. For the change left over from $20…

I've been using these old T series thinkpads for awhile. What I get is dim 16:9 screens, whisper quiet tinny speakers, battery life reliant on the extended batteries that ended with T480, these old units are half as fast at least as a contemporary laptop. The antiglare is mostly necessary because the stock screen can't handle more than 250nit in an HDR world. I can't advise a better machine for around 500, but on a 2 grand budget I think it's worth getting more.

Yet I almost see a fetishism around these machines I don't truly understand. 1080p, 60hz, 250nit, 16:9, 54% sRGB is the most common config you'll see and I really think on a 2 grand budget you shouldn't put up with it when purchasing new. This is also just a Lenovo thing, the Elitebook from the same year was 630nit 88% sRGB and the funny thing is that Lenovo probably only saved 10 or 20 bucks stocking this crap based on the price of replacement parts. On a 2 grand budget I'd spoil yourself with something better.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#196

Post by geekifier »

lelanthran wrote: post #169
jazzyjackson wrote: post #57

serious question: what is the practical difference between MacOS and Linux? Do you have a habit of modifying your wifi drivers and recompiling the source? I am big on open source but have never felt my life was improved chasing dependencies vs just brew install ... I have never had a satisfactory battery + sleep/standby experience on a linux machine, vs a Mac I can leave unplugged for weeks and it wakes back up where…

> serious question: what is the practical difference between MacOS and Linux? For a daily driver? Poor UI experience on MacOS. On Linux usually one of Mate, Plasma, WindowMaker, XFCE or Gnome will have the Window behaviour (snapping, tiling, maximising, switching) I want. All of the Linux options have file-selection dialogs that don't suck. All of the Linux distros I have used for a daily driver have better software…

> it doesn't ever crash and it sleeps and wakes correctly.

Maybe I have been unlucky, but I have experienced many panics across several different machines running recent MacOS releases. 2 of those being corporate machines, so I can blame the "security" software that gets deployed. My home Mac mini, does not have any crapware deployed, and it still managed to crash once or twice.

In contrast, my ancient desktop running Windows 10 has not had a single BSOD in the years since I built that Ivy Bridge machine. And this included running much more intensive workloads than the terminal/docker/text editor workloads on my Macs.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#197

Post by jlokier »

usr1106 wrote: post #140
afarrell wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I miss most from Linux is strace. This is far outweighed by 1. The much frequency with which stuff just works on OSX. 2. The opportunities to spend $30 on an app instead of $300-$800 worth of time on software that is Free as in Puppy.

Are you serious? There is nothing comparable to strace on MacOS? strace can save you so much time if some software (your own or not) just doesn't work like you want. Of course problems 100% in user space are not covered. But I find a fair share of real world problems are.

> Are you serious? There is nothing comparable to strace on MacOS?

There's dtruss, but the information and options are nowhere near as useful as strace, and for some system calls it prints errors instead. read() and write() print access errors so you can't see what's read and written, same with stat/fstat, you just get an address, no file information.

Perhaps strace could be ported to MacOS but it's not. "brew install strace" says "strace: Linux is required for this software." :-)

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#198

Post by tikkabhuna »

noduerme wrote: post #192

This is probably an unpopular view, but I kind of use laptops as if they were terminals. If you want to spend $2k, I'd invest $1600 of that in a great desktop machine, and spend the other $400 on a cheap chromebook and tablets / keyboards / gizmos to log into it remotely.

I agree with this. I bought a Dell XPS 15 a few years ago with discrete GPU with the hope of using it for dev/mild gaming. Its now just used for remote desktop.

Horses for courses though. If I didn't have space for a desktop I'd be happy to have the XPS 15.

Multi-monitor is my big requirement when it comes to development. The 15" screen is good, but it doesn't beat a proper side by side setup.

Re: Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?

#200

Post by JabavuAdams »

** "I don't want to use a Mac" **

"I've had these problems with Mac"

Reasonable response: Cool, use what works for you. EDIT> Here are some suggestions that match your constraints.

Annoying response 1: You should reconsider because Mac works great for me.

Annoying response 2: Your problems aren't real problems.

Annoying response 3: Let's live debug your problems in this thread to see if they're real problems.

Guys. I mean. Seriously.

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