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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

#741

Post by agentultra »

TACIXAT wrote: post #636
agentultra wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had that problem with Linux where I wanted to be able to seamlessly use my Wacom pad with a decent graphics editing suite... oops no, it's terrible. Mainly because the environment for these tools is proprietary and there aren't enough graphics people in the Linux market to support it as a platform. So... mac it still is. Windows is looking better these days.

When was this? Wacom drivers come built into Ubuntu now. I use my tablet with MyPaint. I agree that the graphics suites could be better, but it works for my not-so-artistic pursuits.

The last I tried it the baseline works. All of the buttons, wheels, pressure sensitivity, tip angles, etc... not good.

Just want to re-iterate it's not Linux's fault, it just doesn't work well as a proprietary platform. So if your program needs art assets you'll have to get them elsewhere. And if you want to deploy on Mac or Win you'll have to have one of those anyway... so shrug.

I like programming on Linux for sure it's just not there as a personal OS. And I used to run a very stripped down, customized Arch distro... on a desktop PC. It never worked well on any laptop I've owned and required too much hand-holding with rolling releases breaking things occasionally.

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

#742

Post by azinman2 »

accatyyc wrote: post #714
polyfractal wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really just a war of opinions now, but the F1 keys are indispensable to me. My fingers rest on the hotkeys for "step into", "step over", "run to breakpoint" and I can keep my eyes glued to the watch list, inspecting the variables at each step. Some times you want to quickly step into functions, other times step over, and it's just really handy to have it mapped to keys. I'm not even a power emacs user or some…

But what if your IDE simply adds the debugger buttons to the touch strip instead? They could even have the correct icons and update state as you debug. Seems even better to me.

And/or other keyboard shortcuts. This is not some immutable situation.

I don't know why everyone is unnecessarily freaking out over this non-issue that has so many alternative solutions, some of which will be superior.

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

#743

Post by chairmanwow »

guelo wrote: post #387
rikkus wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh. I'm using Dvorak, so most of the keybindings in Vim are total madness anyways. For most regular typing, my fingers stay on home far more than you Qwerty typists.

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

#744

Post by chairmanwow »

drakenot wrote: post #257
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?

Remapping Esc has always been one of the first tips that I read from experienced Vim users. I've had Caps Lock remapped to Esc for years now.

This is the kind of advice that young programmers need to get earlier. I'm new to Vim and I'm slowly realizing that A) Vim is way more powerful than I originally gave it credit to be and B) I'm vastly underutilizing its power.

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

#745

Post by albertgao »

accatyyc wrote: post #714
polyfractal wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really just a war of opinions now, but the F1 keys are indispensable to me. My fingers rest on the hotkeys for "step into", "step over", "run to breakpoint" and I can keep my eyes glued to the watch list, inspecting the variables at each step. Some times you want to quickly step into functions, other times step over, and it's just really handy to have it mapped to keys. I'm not even a power emacs user or some…

But what if your IDE simply adds the debugger buttons to the touch strip instead? They could even have the correct icons and update state as you debug. Seems even better to me.

Aha, so you prefer the way that your sight just go back and forth between screen and touch bar.....?

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

#746

Post by raugustinus »

aikah wrote: post #676
ghostly_s wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but removing this row of keys is entirely justified if you accept that the touchbar is a valuable addition. Having to reach over a row of useless keys (I suspect Apple's data would show ~90% of customers literally never use them, except for the system-control functions) to interact with the touchbar would seriously compromise it's utility.

> (I suspect Apple's data would show ~90% of customers literally never use them, except for the system-control functions) Completely dishonest and backed by no fact at all, you can make up some data, I can too, I didn't. You call them "useless keys" but there are here for a reason. There are so useless than the touchbar can emulate this "useless" row, except that now users have to look at the keyboard to type since t…

Calling it dishonest and backed by no fact at all and then go mentioning they are there for a reason. Can you elaborate? Historically they are programmable keys, not very standard at all. Same goes for the reason keyboards are staggered, to mimic mechanical typewriters that couldn't have the keys orthogonally placed. No problem changing that.

And no I'm not a fan of the Touch Pad at all, using a 2013MBP as a daily driver. I don't understand all the fuss.

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

#747

Post by pulse7 »

akramhussein wrote: post #492
ageektrapped wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. I priced Macbook Pro 15" plus adapters in CDN $ and got sticker shock.

Did the same in UK. They also bumped the prices in the UK for all machines due to the fall in GBP. Double shock.

Did you vote for brexit? ;-)

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

#748

Post by Matthias247 »

heeen2 wrote: post #609
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…

How about non-US keyboard layouts? [ alone is altgr-8 on german layout.

I wondered about that in the other thread. But it actually works with Ctrl+Ä or Ctrl-Ü (depending whether you are in OSX or Windows) in the console.

However this still does not help for a missing ESC in other applications (like IDEs where you sometimes want to close an annoying intellisense dialog).

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

#749

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

mikeash wrote: post #337

I'm always amazed at how techies are so often unable to consider other people's points of view. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but no. If you don't like the new design, that's totally fine. I've seen a lot of people saying that. But when you say that the new design is bad for everybody , or bad for millions of people you haven't met, based solely on your own personal reasons, you've lost it. I'm a developer. T…

My problem is thus: I'm worried I won't like the new laptop and its going to decrease productivity.

I have a very small desire for change. I do like my existing mid-2014 15" MBP but I beat on them really hard so at almost 2 years old, it needs a replacement now.

I'm worried that I will basically end up in a position where I won't have anything that is a suitable replacement for this laptop when it breaks.

The lack of ANY USB ports is frustrating too. I have a hardware USB YubiKey Nano dongle that I leave permanently plugged into my computer for 2FA to various services. I don't want to loose the ability to do that (and I'm not even sure its physically possible to have something like that for USB-C -- its just too small)

I use vim for everything and thus obsessively use the esc key (yes, I know you can remap it, but I'll be fighting against 20+ years of muscle memory). Will the new virtual ESC key be enough? I hope so.

The lack of magsafe also really irks me. I used to destroy chargers like crazy before magsafe. Replacing magsafe with USB-C doesn't seem like a positive step to me.

I really want to love this computer, because I really don't see another option. I'm just worried that I won't and then I won't have any better options.

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

#750

Post by [deleted] »

_ao789 wrote: post #483
readitmeow wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does an external keyboard give you that you can't get from a laptop keyboard? I like the macbook pro keyboard. I plug in two monitors and I'm good to go. Vim users should remap somewhere closer. I use cap locks. Will that not be possible anymore?

A delete button, instead of just backspace

[deleted]
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