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The $80 web development workstation

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Re: The $80 web development workstation

#51

Post by mindslight »

DougWebb wrote: post #12
jurassic wrote: post #6

The T42 was a really solid pre-Lenovo ThinkPad that had significant mindshare among tech nerds when I arrived at MIT. It was my machine in college and the keyboard was amazing. I'd probably still be using it if one of the fans hadn't died around year 4. Pretty as Macs are, and awesome as the glass touchpad is, I still miss that ThinkPad keyboard.

Lenovo made the T42 too, they were just the silent manufacturer at the time with IBM putting on the branding. I'm not sure of the distribution between IBM and Lenovo for the design and QA aspects, but IBM definitely controlled much of that too.

idk about the T42, but sometime between the T22 and the T60, things definitely went downhill. So between that and anything newer only having a shortscreen, I recently opted to upgrade to a T61 that I should be able to keep going for quite some time.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#52

Post by bosie »

ucarion wrote: post #45
quaunaut wrote: post #21

Honest question here: Why would anyone ever think OS X has "world-class interface design"? It's missing basic interface features that have been bog standard in Ubuntu/Windows for years, like any sort of proper window management. Hell, the maximize button actually doesn't work - it has such inconsistent use that you have almost no hope of actually getting what you want out of it. To get even decent window management,…

Though I agree with the idea of your post, in case you weren't aware, pressing Shift while clicking the maximize button causes a Windows-style maximize that fills the screen.

does not work for me (Finder; 10.8.4). shift+green-button is the same as just the green button. do you have a plugin or something?

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#53

Post by enra »

quaunaut wrote: post #21

Honest question here: Why would anyone ever think OS X has "world-class interface design"? It's missing basic interface features that have been bog standard in Ubuntu/Windows for years, like any sort of proper window management. Hell, the maximize button actually doesn't work - it has such inconsistent use that you have almost no hope of actually getting what you want out of it. To get even decent window management,…

I guess it because, quite many people can rely on Mac or Windows for their daily work. All required things have pretty polished interface where as Linux distros have getting better, but there are still lot of unpolished, or missing interfaces.

With Windows there is too much and ugly chrome around everything, slow and buggy views.

Apple's view on the maximize button is that it should maximize the window to the width of the available content, and not to the screen. Today lot of the widescreen resolutions and screensizes are much bigger, so doesn't necessarily make sense to maximize every app. It's designed that way, even you might disagree.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#54

Post by enra »

bosie wrote: post #52
ucarion wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I agree with the idea of your post, in case you weren't aware, pressing Shift while clicking the maximize button causes a Windows-style maximize that fills the screen.

does not work for me (Finder; 10.8.4). shift+green-button is the same as just the green button. do you have a plugin or something?

It depends on the app. It doesn't work on Finder, but does on Chrome, Sparrow etc

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#55

Post by Jormundir »

kevincrane wrote: post #40
Jormundir wrote: post #32

This article leaves out a key factor of why I've never committed to Linux full time, and why I wouldn't buy an $80 laptop to run linux. I have 1 laptop, and I don't just use it for development. I've tried over and over to use Linux as my primary OS, but every time the sheer jaggedness of the GUI experience, when I'm doing non-development (I guess normal consumer) things, bugs me non-stop until I switch back. It's lik…

It's popular to hate on Ubuntu, but I personally love it and its UI. I've used Ubuntu since 11.04 and run 13.04 on my personal laptop (for development and day-to-day stuff). I'm a sucker for pretty things like translucent title bars and snapping windows to full-screen, but I also love how easy it is to develop with Linux (as opposed to Windows). Everything is usually a single command away on the command line (sudo ap…

Maybe I should try it again, but last time I used it, I couldn't get programs to just work. I don't want to hate on ubuntu, I liked a lot about it, but so often you can't just install and use something, you have to do a bunch of fiddling.

Last time I used it, I couldn't get Dropbox to install correctly. Sublime text would always open in the default spot and with the default window size rather than where I closed it. There are all of these very minuscule problems that add up to a very agitating experience. That's why I said it comes up excruciatingly short, I feel like Linux is almost the best OS on every level, yet on every level (above the command line) there's some little thing that's irritating.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#57

Post by at-fates-hands »

I would jump ship immediately to Linux full-time if someone developed a really good alternative to Photoshop. Something that's cross platform compatible. You have a PSD file? You can open it with GIMP (as an example). Oh you have a GIMP file? You can open that with Photoshop.

Right now, I have way too many people who deal with Adobe and for some stupid reason, Adobe continues to think Linux users are freeloaders who won't pay for the software, so they don't develop a Linux version.

I little development work I have done on Linux has been a breeze. I still hold out hope some company will start to compete with Adobe and give us an opportunity to get away from them and MS once and for all.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#58

Post by quaffapint »

leokun wrote: post #18

You shouldn't be looking for bargains for your developer hardware. You should pay for what you want, not just for what you need. You spend a lot of time using this for your daily tasks, and it's worth it.

Why does everyone always have to get what they want and not just what they need? I might want a $50,000 car, but I don't need it - this is just sad that people feel they should just always get what they want every time. I applaud the guy for realizing he didn't need to spend $1000.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#59

Post by tjr »

wildster wrote: post #44
kevincrane wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular to hate on Ubuntu, but I personally love it and its UI. I've used Ubuntu since 11.04 and run 13.04 on my personal laptop (for development and day-to-day stuff). I'm a sucker for pretty things like translucent title bars and snapping windows to full-screen, but I also love how easy it is to develop with Linux (as opposed to Windows). Everything is usually a single command away on the command line (sudo ap…

I agree the hardcore linux folk all seem to hate on Ubuntu, but it does just work.

One reason that some avoid Ubuntu: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.html

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#60

Post by icelancer »

morgante wrote: post #42
icelancer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you give me an example? I'm genuinely curious... Try getting connectors to MSSQL working properly (in various languages) on either OS. It's annoying as hell on Linux, damn near impossible on OSX (without cheating using ODBC instead of native drivers).

ODBC doesn't seems like cheating to me. I can understand why you'd use Windows if you're using a Microsoft stack. At that point, there's no saving you.

ODBC connectors don't offer the same suite of functions that native MSSQL might for a given language. This was annoyingly true for me at my last place of employment. MSSQL/T-SQL horsecrap for "BI" since everyone "knows" MSSQL is better.

As usual, these things are the decisions of the architects, not the analysts. As such...

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