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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

#641

Post by cerrelio »

None of the article's points is relevant.

1. Function keys were a convenience. You can map ESC to other physical keys.

2. 16GB RAM and processor are fine, if you're still able to fit your processing in that configuration. Otherwise you're probably using a laptop as a terminal to a computing cluster (AWS/cloud/etc), which have more computing power and memory than an Apple warehouse.

3. Who cares what people on Twitter are saying.

The MacBook Pro was never meant to be a developer's machine. Any developer with half a brain knows there are more configurable and cheaper laptops out there. MBP is mostly for conspicuous consumption.

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

#642

Post by mschuster91 »

Why Apple doesn't offer swappable RAM any more, the disks in a weird format instead of SATA, glued batteries, ... is all about one thing: making more money.

See, I have a Fall 2011 MBP. Its battery still sports 3-4h usage, and it's rare that I max out the 16GB RAM. I have virtually no reason to upgrade.

Now, with one of the new(ish) MBPs: Want to upgrade the RAM because you thought "oh, 8GB will be sufficient"? Straight outta luck. Want to upgrade the disk because 512GB SSD isn't big enough? Straight outta luck (because it's likely to be expensive as hell compared to an ordinary mass market Samsung 850 SSD). Want to replace the battery in 4 years? Quite likely going to be impossible. Anything broken (scratched/smashed screen, broken touchpad, worn out keyboard)? Have fun spending $$$$ in the Apple Store because it's a PITA to replace anything.

Except for the disk, if you want to upgrade anything you MUST shell out serious amounts of cash for a new mac.

That you'll need to part with even more cash in order to use basic interfaces (Ethernet, SD cards, Firewire to just name a few) sucks even more - and dongles are far more likely to just break, e.g. if your laptop gets fallen from your desk by a playful cat...

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

#643

Post by dbolgheroni »

lucisferre wrote: post #450
bisby wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I nearly exclusively use VIm and any other editor I use has a VIm mode plugin installed. I pretty much can't work productively in anything else. I can tell you that I haven't used Esc in ages. I have Caps Lock mapped to Ctrl (as it is a vastly more useful a key than Esc and Caps Lock is a much better position for it and is just as an extraneous as Esc is). I use Ctrl-C or Ctrl-[ to exit insert mode and it works just…

So wait for Apple to remove the Caps Lock key in the next generation.

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

#644

Post by mozumder »

geofft wrote: post #603
mozumder wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see. I didn't even consider that a function command. I was expecting more commands to use the ESC key?

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd even call it a command - but it is pretty fundamental to vi usage, unless you're using some alternative like ^C or the "remap typing 'jk' to Esc" trick. When you're saying you've never used the Esc key, you mean you only use the Esc key to take you out of insert mode, I guess?

Yes. I do use ESC that to exit insert mode. Sorry for any confusion.

I was expecting commands to be anything you did after the typing in colon.

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

#645

Post by lewiscollard »

Orangeair wrote: post #473

I'm surprised that so many people use them even today. Unless you're fully ingrained into the Mac ecosystem, there are just too many idiosyncrasies that make moving between platforms in possible, like the use of the 'command' key which no other platform in the world uses, or the weird placement of the control key which completely negates years of muscle memory (a trend which some Windows laptops are unfortunately beg…

I use a MBP[1] at my day job and Linux on my personal machines.[2] I am a developer at a digital design agency so my priorities may not line up with those of other developers, but MBPs rock for what I do because:

1) Photoshop (the designers use Photoshop, so this largely rules out using Linux boxes)

2) Extremely colour-accurate display out of the box (PC displays have always been a bit of a crapshoot on this count in my experience)

3) Being Unix

3a) A real command line (admittedly I haven't tried the Ubuntu-on-Windows thing)

4) I'm not paying for it!

Speaking only for me, switching between using two platforms has really not a problem for me - I do it every day. When I first went into this job I was worried that a Mac was going to be a very difficult transition to make, but it turned out to be straightforward - just needed a little muscle-memory retraining :)

[1] Never really sure if this should be "an" or "a"...

[2] Written from my 2006 Thinkpad of Death :)

(edited: linebreaks)

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

#646

Post by redler »

jobigoud wrote: post #424
ag_47 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm, looking at the comments -- am I the only who uses Fn + Arrow Keys for Page Up/Down and Home/End purposes? How can you not?

I realize I don't know the first thing about MacBook keyboards. Are you saying they don't have Page up, Page down, Home and End? Maybe a Windows thing but I use Function keys everyday, F3 for incremental search, F5, F9, F10, F11 for debugging. Not having these keys would be handicapping.

With the touch bar, you could now have buttons (virtual, of course) with those labels and functions.

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

#647

Post by gnashville »

suprgeek wrote: post #559

What they could have done (one or more): 1) Bezel-less display 2) Full Touch screen 3) Detachable Screen - IPad Pro + 4) Stylus input (from Apple Pencil) 5) 15-20 hr battery life 6) NVidia Graphics 7) 64 Gb Ram option 8) Kept the HDMI & SDXC port What they did do: 1) Gimmicky Touch bar - Useless when you close the MBP & Dock; Hard to do for touch typists 2) Hiked the prices by crazy margins 3) Pegged the RAM at 16 Gb…

> What they did do:

Not really surprised by any of it except number 3.

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

#649

Post by sosborn »

solatic wrote: 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…

> Why does Apple get a pass?

Do you remember trackpads before Apple got them right?

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

#650

Post by rbanffy »

Veen wrote: post #635
rbanffy wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a vim user, esc is pretty important. I am pretty sure that when you open a terminal, esc and function keys will be up there. It'll not be a mechanical key, but I'm sure it'll still work.

I wonder if any of the people watched the demo. They showcased Terminal, and there was an escape key on the touch bar. They also specifically said pressing the "fn"'key would show function keys on the touch bar, which is exactly what you have to do on current Apple keyboards to use the function keys. It seems like a non-issue to me unless people simply don't like the touch bar not being physical keys, which is fine,…

I haven't. I based my prediction on the assumption Apple engineers are not stupid. For what I observe, it's quite the opposite.

The bar's function varies according to the application being used. It should be trivial to make, say, iTerm, which is immensely popular (I use it myself) have Esc and function keys available by default.

I imagine Cathode (http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/), another favorite of mine, will have beautiful function keys.

> because they can just get the other Pro without it.

Plus, it's cheaper.

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