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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

#731

Post by otterley »

elcct wrote: post #726
otterley wrote: post #456

I think there are some technological limitations behind the 16GB maximum RAM configuration. The highest-density DDR3 DRAM packages I could find that run at the rated speed are 8 gigabits, which means 16 chips are required on the board. There probably just isn't enough room there for 16 more chips. 16-gigabit packages are slowly arriving on the market, but I imagine it'll be a couple more years before they're availabl…

They could use ddr4, cpu supports it

You can't fit DDR4 SODIMMs on a notebook of this form factor. And this processor generation doesn't support LPDDR4 memory yet.

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

#732

Post by beamatronic »

elboru wrote: post #591
ixtli wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people keep saying they've "removed" the escape key. The thing is programmable. http://live.arstechnica.com/hello-again-apples-october-2016-...

Do you remember texting without a touchscreen? I used to do it without looking at my phone, now with touchscreen I lost that ability, I have to check every word, some keyboards help with that correcting my words if I moved my fingers a little to the side, but it's not the same, with physical buttons I was sure I pressed the correct buttons. Physical buttons give touch feedback and that's important when you're focused…

Which phones did you use? I used Palm Treos from 2004 to about 2009 or so, some of the keys even had a bump so you could locate the home row keys. You truly could type somewhat accurately without looking at the keyboard.

edit: wrong year

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

#733

Post by askopress »

I suppose a front-end developer isn't considered a developer? Linux doesn't work for me as we need Photoshop and Sketch and well, Linux kind of looks ugly as well (with the notable exception of Elementary OS, which tries to be the OS X/macOS of Linux).

It's also mentioned that the ESC key will still be there, and you can map your own keys to the Touch Bar as well, it just won't be a physical key anymore. This generalization that just because you can't use Vim anymore (which you can) the entire MacBook brand is gone to shit (which it hasn't) or worse, that Apple is stupid (it's not).

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

#734

Post by wlesieutre »

deong wrote: post #482
wlesieutre wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do some programming (Xcode and VS Code), I do some 3D art (blender, substance), and I do some photography (Lightroom). Not all of those programs will support it at launch, but I expect they will sooner or later. And the new screen sounds fabulous (I have a wide gamut external screen already, though it's AdobeRGB instead of P3, the MacBook will do better in reds and not quite as well in greens). I wish it were cheap…

If I were still a Mac user (back to Linux a year or so ago), I think I'd be annoyed by the new laptops. Not enraged...just annoyed a bit. It's not the end of the world, but like a lot of Apple's recent moves, I'm left with a feeling of "OK, but why?" With both the headphone jack removal on the iPhone and the function keys here, Apple has used "but they're old" as part of the justification. Playing a slideshow showing…

The justification isn't just "they're old" though. It's "they're old and almost completely unused."

I know in Windows there are actual actions on the f-keys (F1 for help, F2 for rename, F5 for reload, etc.), but the Mac has no such equivalents. They're used for hardware and music control, and have this whole secondary mode of fn+F_ chords that hardly anyone touches.

The touch bar will be useful in nearly every app. I wasn't about to set up and memorize custom F-key bindings in every piece of software I use, so it's going to be more useful. And it allows for types of input that buttons couldn't offer to begin with.

With the headphone jack, it was "it's old and we have something better," which I'm not thrilled by (but I wasn't planning on getting a new phone anyway). The USB-C and removal of F-keys I'm totally on board with.

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

#735

Post by mastre_ »

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…

Two things:

- can you give me some details on your remap setup on macOS? if you have dotfiles somewhere that'd be great.

- as a vim user who only uses vim as an editor, I challenge the assumption that touch Esc is a horrible thing. Esc is a very special key and it may turn out to be ok for it to _be_ different, and _feel_ different.

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

#736

Post by jdhawk »

rayiner wrote: post #390
jeswin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

The only issue I have with the 5510 is they keyboard. Compared to my 2011 MBAir, this thing is really sub-par.

There is a lot of trackpad jitter as well - which is easy to disable when a mouse is plugged in, but still.

edit: the camera is also in a stupid place.

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

#737

Post by Imagenuity »

Apple needs a built-in, system level, per-app configurable Touch Bar settings tool. Apps may provide their own configurations, but they have to be customizable.

Only by putting this in as part of the system settings, will a standardized way of apps making touchbars and users making customizations work across all apps.

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

#738

Post by kps »

foxylion wrote: post #106
AlexMuir wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck using Sublime or atom over SSH.

Sometimes I've a feeling that some people really like it complicated. Today it is no mysterium to mount a remote machine via SSH and edit all the files using atom/sublime/vs code/... so mostly no need for a terminal editor on a remote server. And have you ever tried to use a terminal (editor) on remote over a connection with high latency? Awful.

> And have you ever tried to use a terminal (editor) on remote over a connection with high latency? Awful.

That's why ed doesn't prompt. (ed is the standard text editor.)

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

#739

Post by busterarm »

pilif wrote: post #378
busterarm wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the abysmally low margins typically made off of keyboards and mice along with the fact that the highend of the market is driven by desktop gamers, I think you're going to see plain USB Keyboards and Mice sticking around for a long, long, long, long time. Hell, I can still buy some of my favorite keyboards with a PS/2 connection or with an included adapter. I've been using external devices for these with my macbo…

> I think you're going to see plain USB Keyboards and Mice sticking around for a long, long, long, long time I'm not saying the old USB A peripherals will stop to exist. I'm saying that two years from now every conceivable peripheral will be available with a USB-C plug or at least a USB-C to whatever they need cable.

And in the case of the devices I mentioned, that will almost always be a dongle.

No thanks.

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

#740

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

falcolas wrote: post #555
geofft wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use to get out of insert mode? Like, you've just finished typing some text and want to save and quit, what do you press? EDIT: Thanks for the replies, other people. I personally use ^C, I was curious what 'mozumder specifically used. :)

The usual answer is 'C-[' or 'kj' (having added the appropriate line to your .vimrc).

Which is fine if you do everything locally (because you control that configuration), but not having escape really sucks when you are on servers a lot and you can't necessarily go changing vim settings around.
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