New MacBook Pro Is Not a Laptop for Developers Anymore

Post by claudius » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

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…

Post by neo2006 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

PopsiclePete wrote: post #472

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a completely fair post. Devs are a huge market for Apple, but Apple is ignoring them. This isn't about ESC, it's about whether Apple has any interest in acknowledging the dev market and keeping devs on board. The answer is "no." Apple is making no concessions to developers or professional power users who need performance. Instead, Apple is producing vanilla-grade laptops with a touch of gimmicky brand fr…

They're ignoring the giant behemoth that is ....Vim users..? What? Wait till the EMACS crowd gets a whiff of how Apple refuses to sell pedals for their keybindings, then Apple is truly in trouble. Look, I know VIM is popular, but so is XCode, so is Sublime, so is Atom, so is TextMate, so is a multitude of other text editors for God's sake, that to claim that Apple is somehow "abandoning the entire software developmen…

Post by SliderUp » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #289

xbryanx wrote: post #98

I'm always confused by the interface outrage from hard core devs around new laptops. As a dev, I spend the absolute minimum time possible developing by interfacing with my MacBook itself. 98% of the time I'm plugged into a mechanical keyboard, giant monitors, and a real sound system. My MacBook sits to the side and only gets touched when I'm on an airplane or a meeting.

I was thinking the same, and I realized the answer is simple: it is not "hard core devs". Who cares so much about 6+ hours of battery life, if most of the time you are just at your workplace - whether at the office or at home? People whose workplace is at neither of those, and instead they work in some damn coffee shop.

Post by dunham » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #480

zzzcpan wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESC key is the default in vim, most vim users do use it.

Thanks for some sanity. The other anecdote is I've been using vim for about 15 years, and use esc daily. I am constantly in multiple vim environments - different servers, different clients, different OS, etc. I don't have the luxury of saying "I'm going to install all my default vim keybindings and plugins on every vim installation I ever use". Walking someone else over the phone who has to do vim - I need to count o…

Post by sosborn » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

dan1234 wrote: post #250

pilif wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need a dongle or an USB-C to Lightning cable. Those exist. And so do any USB-C to any other USB-Plug cables. Considering that Apple revises their hardware builds about every four years, it makes sense to move to strictly USB-C now as two years from now, I'm quite sure no more peripheral will come out that has anything but USB-C. So within the next 2-3 years you'll have collected heaps of USB-C cables that will…

I think Apple could’ve avoided a lot of the hate if they’d bundled a few of the more common adapters as standard, to ease people through the transition to using USB-C for everything. If I bought a new MBP today, I’d need: * a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter at £49 * a USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter (giving HDMI and a USB port) at £69 * a USB-C to USB Adapter at £19 That’s £137 just to connect the t…