Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes the next generation of MBP will not have a cd drive and is supposed to be like a MBA but a little bigger.
Where did you get that information?
He's referring to the usual suspect... rumors.
Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
61–70 of 84 posts
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#62Personally I would pick Thinkpad or Dell - you can check "compatibility" of specific model with drivers shipped in linux kernel - so you don't have to mess with drivers at all. At least that's what I always do - never had an issue with compatiblity with linux nowdays, just buy what you know will be supported best. I think it more depends what you want to develop, i've often heard that it's less hassle to play with py…
If you go with homebrew and virtualenv to handle the installs for your python development, most of the problems disappear.
Good to know that it's getting better nowdays, still I would not exchange my trusty linux distro to osx ;-)
How are things when you have to compile python extensions on your own?
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> i've often heard that it's less hassle to > play with python etc. on linux than on a bsd. Why is that so? I've switched my server OS from Linux to FreeBSD, and I think I won't ever go back. Apart from the binary distribution channel, I haven't observed the slightest difference when it comes to programming stacks.
By bsd I meant OSX ;-)
I see. The architecture is named Darwin, and I heard the same rumors about it python-wise and the like. Thanks for the response.
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#64I've recently switched from a MBP to a System76 laptop, after about 5 years of running MacOS X, and I couldn't be much happier. The new MBPs are extremely harsh to type on between the sharp edge and the keyboard. I ultimately had to buy a Kinesis just to use it because the MBP destroyed my fingers. Most people don't have that problem, but it's nice to be able to actually use my laptop as a portable device again. I al…
I've always wanted to buy a system76 laptop; can you please elaborate on the model that you bought? The only things I was unsure of: 1) Is it very heavy (as in weight) compared to MBP? 2) Display quality? 3) Trackpad quality? (I don't mean to turn this into a review, but just wanted a developers experienced opinion on the issues that nagged me most)
I used a sys76 pangolin for two years and loved it. The only complaint I ever had was the battery life.
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#65macbook pro 13" fan here - you can throw up to 16 gigs or ram in it, and an ssd/hdd combo. wait another month for the new ones to come out though. If I had to buy a non-apple laptop right now though with linux in mind, it'd likely be a hp envy 14 spectre at some big discount. other contenders would be the vaio z or samsung series 7. i'd usually recommend lenovo, but they haven't had any good minimal designs come out…
Is it undocumented that the MBPs can handle up to 16GB of RAM? According to apple, they all can only go up to 8GB (or 4 for older models).
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#66Yes
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#67I switched from Ubuntu on a ThinkPad to a MacBook Air 13" from mid 2011 and I love it.
I switched from an iMac to Ubuntu on a Thinkpad from mid 2011 and I love it ;-) I also have a desktop, mind. Don't know how anyone can do development solely on a laptop.
You can do development on a laptop just fine if you plug in an external keyboard and one or two external monitors.
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#68The hardware is definitely solid, whether you go for macbook pro, which has faster cpu but needs aftermarket SSD, or macbook air that is slower but has SSD integrated and has better resolution. The OS ... depends on what are you developing. Mac OS is about as good for consuming stuff as windows 7, i.e. pretty good. For developing web apps, with textmate and github you're golden. But for full scale unix coding, you ca…
You can still install gcc. There are packages somewhere on github.
Interesting. Where?
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I also really don't like the direction Apple is taking MacOS. Lion chugs resources and does odd things like disable my second monitor when apps go into fullscreen mode. So, you come to the bizarro conclusion that Apple's direction includes Lion "chugging resources" and having a fullscreen mode bug? Truth is, OS X always had bugs, as did every OS release ever, be it Linux/Gnome, to Windows, to whatever... Some get sq…
No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard. I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does. For most non-devs, it's probably fine. I suppose that's why the MacBook Airs only sh…
>No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them.
How about just one then? I don't see a iOS-ification, I just see a cross-pollination of concepts. Haven't met many people who don't like full-screen apps for example, especially for certain tasks that require concentration, like writing, drawing, etc, even programming. Though, could a full-screen Emacs still be considered a full-screen "app" (full-screen OS?). I also like how I finally have one bloody view for both spaces AND "expose" that is convenient.
>Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard.
It seems like something that it's either obvious (say, a 20% slowdown), or something marginal that needs lotsa testing to find out. I haven't experienced anything of the former. As for the latter, do we have any numbers? At least, some benchmark run on the exact same machine, on a newly installed Snow Leopard AND Lion. This guys ran one, and it showed the exact same performance for both Snow Leopard and Lion, with marginal variation in different areas to one or the other. The more impressive gains were on the Lion side:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4485/back-to-the-mac-os-x-107-...
Same results as these guys:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20081987-1/snow-leopard-...
So, no, "Lion chugs resources" sounds like a subjective unsubstantiated claim to me, as does every similar statements, whatever the OS or app, if it's not accompanied with numbers.
>I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does.
This makes it sound like the "chugging of resources" is, if not the direction, as you say, an inherent attribute of the direction (i.e like with that direction it would be inevitable NOT to chug resources).
The numbers show that this is in fact not the case at all -- it does NOT chug resouces.
But even if it was, I wouldn't rush to call it an inherent attribute of the direction, but merely an accidental one, some bug or sloppy coding that introduced performance regressions and that can be fixed, whatever the direction.
Re: Ask HN: MacBook Pro still preferred laptop for non-MS development?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. Incidentally, Lion chugs resources when compared to the same exact hardware on Snow Leopard. I never said their direction was to chug resources -- I implied their new direction chugs resources, and it does. For most non-devs, it's probably fine. I suppose that's why the MacBook Airs only sh…
>No. I don't like the iOS-like direction Apple is heading in starting with Lion. I didn't feel the need to enumerate all of them. How about just one then? I don't see a iOS-ification, I just see a cross-pollination of concepts. Haven't met many people who don't like full-screen apps for example, especially for certain tasks that require concentration, like writing, drawing, etc, even programming. Though, could a full…
I started a lengthy reply before realizing you're just going to continue to pick sentence by sentence, ignore the spirit of the discussion, and then even bizarrely ignore the same points you previously attacked.
I'm confused as to what you're trying to win though. The benchmarks you provide are useless because they're synthentic. No one runs one task at a time (well, unless you use the new fullscreen mode :-P). None of the benchmarks have anything to with the task of programming, which is what the original topic was about. I'd imagine if you stay under the upper bound on load, the performance is roughly on par. But, I can make an 8 GB MBP start swapping like crazy in about 5 minutes. I even added an SSD just to deal with slow swapping. Performing the exact same tasks, I didn't run into that with Snow Leopard. I probably need 16 GB RAM with Lion, but dropping another $1,500 to make that happen was a bit much.
We clearly have different work styles. It's really okay if we have differing world views. I prefer to work with two maximized apps, one on each display. It works best for me. As more apps adopt the new form of full screen, which auto-kills the other display, my life gets harder though. It's really not fullscreen apps, it's single-focus apps. Great. It still doesn't work for me.
If you haven't seen anyone complain about Lion, I really can't help you there. I honestly haven't seen anyone use Lion and not complain about it (well, I guess with you now being the notable exception). A good friend of mine just tweeted a few days ago that it took 15 min. to reboot Lion. I doubt he benchmarked it against Snow Leopard, but I doubt he was lyin' either (pun fully intended).
At the end of the day, Apple is all about the customer experience, or so I've been told. The hardware doesn't work for me. Prolonged typing on the chicklet keyboards introduced with the unibody MBPs has destroyed my hands. The OS doesn't work for me. You don't have to agree with me. Maybe you're right and it's not the direction that's a problem but the current manifestation. It really doesn't matter because I need to get work done today and Lion isn't the best tool for the job. I suspect Mountain Lion is going to exacerbate the problem. Maybe it won't, but you don't know either. The nice part for me is I no longer have to care. I'm much happier with my switch.