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New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

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Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#321

Just curious: how many folks can accurately touch-type the Fn-keys? Personally they're too far away from the home row for me to hit accurately, but maybe that's because I use too many different keyboards and they're all slightly different with spacing. The esc key is easy with it being located in the corner, though. So in my case, I would already look down to hit an F-key, and I imagine functionality such as "compile…

Honestly, I've always felt that Fn keys were an outdated and faulty design. They're too far away to reach gracefully, usually offset from the standard zig-zag of other keys, and awkwardly multi-roled with screen/sound options on most keyboards.

If I'm in an IDE that uses a function key for something like 'compile', I usually rebind it for my own sanity. I have mixed feelings about this update (contextual buttons are often terrible, and I don't mind escape), but losing Fn won't really matter.

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#322
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also recommend Lenovo Thinkpads, which are quite popular with Linux folks. The X and T in particular give a lot of bang for your buck. I am also eying Thinkpad 13 as a great beater machine replacement for my aging x230.

How easy is it upgrading the RAM? I like the look of T560, but it only comes with 8GB.

Iirc they come with some soldered-on RAM (4 or 8 GB) and an empty SO-DIMM slot, so you can stick another 16GB in there for a total of 20 to 24GB

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#323

Just curious: how many folks can accurately touch-type the Fn-keys? Personally they're too far away from the home row for me to hit accurately, but maybe that's because I use too many different keyboards and they're all slightly different with spacing. The esc key is easy with it being located in the corner, though. So in my case, I would already look down to hit an F-key, and I imagine functionality such as "compile…

I work on a Windows machine, but I rely very heavily on function keys and have don't have to look at them.

F1 for help F2 for jump to bookmark F3 for search F4 for next error F5 for debug - go (I live in Visual Studio) etc...

For the longest time, I stuck with a keyboard that had the function keys on the left and I still think that's a superior layout for my purposes.

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The XPS machines (both the 13 and the 15) are excellent. I haven't found anything else that compares across the board.

I had an XPS 13 in 2008, and was really happy with it. The quality was much higher than most of the Dell laptops I've seen. Do you know how well they work with Linux?

They work excellent with Linux. Dell actually sells a "Developer Edition" of the XPS line with Ubuntu pre-installed.

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#326
post #65
post #3

So use an editor that supports a modern UI, like Sublime Text or Atom, and not something originally designed for an ADM-3A terminal.

What about when you ssh into a server?

You know, I agree with the idea this isn't a big deal, or at least, it might not be eventually.

The bar is programmable, so I would expect that applications like iTerm will write in support for it and they probably would include an ESC key on the bar. It would be nice if Apple had thought of this and Terminal.app already did that. Maybe they didn't think about that, but my guess is that they work mostly in Xcode.

Then there is the suggestion from someone else in the comments to remap the Caps Lock key to ESC which might be something I try even though I pretty much use full keyboards. The ESC key on home row might be a great idea.

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#327
post #284

I dislike this post intensely. The opinion comes across as uncharitable, as the author probably has not used this Macbook Pro yet. How can you (alexeysemeney) be so sure? I consider myself a developer, and I almost never use the Fn and ESC keys on my Mac. Everybody uses the computer differently, but I'm pretty sure this is not a deal-breaker for most. One could also argue that the touch bar might lead to innovative d…

As a vim user, esc is pretty important. I would say the author clearly knows very little computer specs: "The MacBook Pro had options with 2.4 gigahertz dual-core processors back in 2010. Anything new in 2016? Not really, well… nope." Because a 2010 2.4ghz dual core is identical to a 2016 2.4 ghz dual core.... I thought we got over comparing processors purely by their clock speed a long time ago. (I will agree that t…

> As a vim user, esc is pretty important.

Would it not be possible to map the dynamic touchbar keys to Esc when one is using vim?

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#328
post #274
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The escape key can be right there on the capslock (option to be enabled in System Preferences -> Keyboard). Using Esc key heavily with its default location is not practical at all. As for the F-keys I think this is more of a problem.

How do you achieve this with just System Preferences? On 10.11.6, I see the System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys allows re-mapping to Nothing, Control, Option, and Command, but not Escape. Is this a macOS Sierra thing? Tell me your secrets!

Yep added in latest Sierra

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#329
post #95

Lenovo introduced a Touch Bar (Adaptive Keyboard strip) in the Thinkpad X1 Carbon in 2014. It flopped so hard that Lenovo pulled it and reinstituted a normal function row in the 2015 refresh. Why does Apple get a pass? No physical keys means not being able to find functionality by touch alone means no muscle memory means no productivity. This isn't a hypothesis, this is a proven market reaction to Lenovo's design cho…

I ran Xubuntu on one of the 2014 X1 Carbons and can confirm the adaptive keyboard strip is terrible. It worked but was clumsy at best. I just upgraded to the t460s with 24G RAM and proper function and escape keys. Great light weight Linux laptop.

Re: New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

#330
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many common applications that developers use have many keybindings that heavily rely upon the Escape key (Vim for sure).

I've developed on a MacBook Pro for the last 5 years in vim and I have never touched the escape key or any of the F keys, ever. If you're using vim and reaching for the escape key you are doing it wrong imho. Rebind esc to something else (like capslock) or learn another pattern that has more ergonomic value.

15 years using Vim with the esc key. I have large fingers though.
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