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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

#381

Post by acdha »

sdegutis wrote: post #180
jws wrote: post #8

Bah, these entitled kids. I guess being old enough to remember keyboards before they had escape keys helps, but ␛ is just keyboard syntactic sugar for control left square bracket . Read your ASCII table! C-[ is even a quicker type avoiding RSIs from all those long pinky reaches. (More seriously, as much as it bothers me to retrain my pinky, most uses of the escape key would be many times better if the lefthand side o…

A lot of non-command-line developer apps use Escape though, like all Jetbrain's IDEs.

What are the odds that someone at JetBrains didn't order one of these because they realize how cool it would be if the IDE displayed real terms like “Refactor”, “Step Into”, “Open method declaration”, “Deploy”, etc. for the very large number of context-dependent shortcuts a modern IDE has?

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

#382

Post by _ix »

sveiss wrote: post #297
_ix wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

It's a Sierra thing (and only the most recent update, 10.12.1, I believe).

OK. Just kicked off the download for Sierra. Thank you!

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

#383

Post by bsenftner »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #129
bsenftner wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm testing out a strange setup that is working surprisingly well: I have a beefy desktop: 64GB RAM and 32 cores. Then I carry an Intel Compute Stick, portable laptop and mouse with me. I just plug into any HDMI monitor to do basic work, or RDP/TeamViewer into my desktop for real work. Surprising how well this is working...

Latency, even as low as 30ms if you're right near your desktop, is simply unbearable to me.

I've been working with remote desktops for a few years now, and I don't feel the latency, if any. Plus, I'm not gaming, I'm writing code.

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

#384

Post by 3chelon »

jws wrote: post #8

Bah, these entitled kids. I guess being old enough to remember keyboards before they had escape keys helps, but ␛ is just keyboard syntactic sugar for control left square bracket . Read your ASCII table! C-[ is even a quicker type avoiding RSIs from all those long pinky reaches. (More seriously, as much as it bothers me to retrain my pinky, most uses of the escape key would be many times better if the lefthand side o…

Awwwwww man!! You just brought back such green-CRT-tinted memories there...

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

#385

Post by __abc »

pavelmelnichuk wrote: post #189
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How easy is it to maintain? Last I heard every update breaks everything.

nah it's not bad. Sometimes you just need to reinstall the same audio kernels, etc (depending on your hardware). There are many guides to find compatible hardware

link?

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

#386

Post by blowski »

sotojuan wrote: post #305
blowski wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need a new one, but my wife does as her one is the Macbook Pro from 2009 and is now extremely slow, and the battery lasts about 20 minutes. So I was going to buy a new one for me, and give her my current one. As you say, the 2014 is a great model - I'm using it right now, and it's plenty sufficient for everything I do.

You could get your wife a refurbished MacBook. They're pretty cheap.

I did look at this, and I found that they weren't cheap at all. The Macbook Pro 13 2012 model is around £800.

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

#387

Post by guelo »

rikkus wrote: post #255
ekianjo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're using vim and reaching for the escape key you are doing it wrong imho. So generations of Vim users are doing it wrong but you have the right answer?

I've been a vi user since 1996 and have always remapped the Esc key because it's too far from home. I had assumed others also did this because I've never seen a vi user who works without some customisation on commonly used boxes and it seems like one of the obvious first changes to make.

This is bullshit. You know what else is not on the home row? Most of the keys on the keyboard. The ESC key is very easy to hit without looking down, there is absolutely no need to remap it and I refuse to believe that people that grew up with keyboards with ESC keys ever feel the need to remap it.

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

#388

Post by aikah »

metafunctor wrote: post #238
ekianjo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're using vim and reaching for the escape key you are doing it wrong imho. So generations of Vim users are doing it wrong but you have the right answer?

The Vi editor was originally written on a terminal which had the Escape key positioned where the Tab key is on modern keyboards. So yes, rebinding Escape is the right answer if you heavily use it. The normal positioning for Escape is very inconvenient for touch typing. http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key

> So yes, rebinding Escape is the right answer if you heavily use it.

nobody does that because it was unnecessary. Of course, now developers need to ADAPT the Macbook instead of the Macbook ADAPTING developer's workflow. That's not the definition of a developer friendly machine. The touchbar is a gimmick and even then it doesn't justify the removal of an entire row of keys. It was purely an aesthetic decision. But I forgot, developers like to work with "beautiful" computers instead of functional ones /s

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

#389

Post by jm547ster »

tincholio wrote: post #252
easytiger wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of us live in a transient computing world, where we neither own nor have permissions to edit the bindings. Having one host with a binding and 6 other client's envs without, would a context switch failure invoke

ctrl-[ works as escape. Also, what kind of devs don't get to customize their setup??

I'd say it's the norm for the 'enterprise' category of development.

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

#390

Post by rayiner »

jeswin wrote: post #182
rayiner wrote: post #7

Honest question: what's the alternative? I've got a 2013 rMBP 15 inch. What's my next machine? I'm not willing to regress on display (220 ppi or better), screen size, or battery life (8-9 hours real use). I might regress on quad core to dual core if everything else is perfect. EDIT: The XPS 15 gets more like 5-6 hours with the high res display by my understanding. The Surface Book has the right combination of resolut…

Depends on your budget: $2000 - A loaded Dell Precision workstation. Wait for Kaby Lake quads though. If you like the Surface Books that's an option too. $1500 - Dell XPS. $1200 - ASUS UX501VW. (Only one RAM slot is upgradable, though) If you have forgiven Lenovo after last year's man-in-the-middle scandal, they continue to make the best keyboards. All of these machines run Linux well (with an occasional driver compi…

The precision 5510 looks great, but: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/dell-precision-5510.

> This workstation can get some serious work done, but its battery life of 5 hours and 34 minutes means you likely won't be taking it far from your desk.

The 13" rMBP gets 12 hours on the same test: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/all-day-strong-longest-las....

I don't feel like I'm being unreasonably picky here. I've been using a laptop with a great display and 8-9 hours of actual battery life for the last two years. Everything on the market right now (including probably the new MBP) is a downgrade from that.

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