Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Big data on the cheapest MacBook

duckdb.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 321 posts

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#91

Post by ladberg »

__mharrison__ wrote: post #73

When I teach, I use "big data" for data that won't fit in a single machine. "Small data" fits on a single machine in memory and medium data on disk. Having said that duckDB is awesome. I recently ported a 20 year old Python app to modern Python. I made the backend swappable, polars or duckdb. Got a 40-80x speed improvement. Took 2 days.

I'm curious - what were you doing that polars was leaving a 40-80x speedup on the table? I've been happy with it's speed when held correctly, but it's certainly easy to hold it incorrectly and kill your perf if you're not careful

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#92

Post by evanjrowley »

>Can I expect good performance from the MacBook Neo with Slack, Microsoft Office, and Google Chrome signed into Atlassian and a CRM, all running simultaneously?

No.

>Do I reject a world where all of the above is necessary to realize value from an entry-level MacBook?

In theory, yes.

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#93

Post by mikepurvis »

boutell wrote: post #74
tjoff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will do real work fine. But slack and a browser will bring it to its knees.

Only if you insist on running the standalone slack app for some reason. Why run one instance of Chrome when you can pay for two?

I've been finding it hard to wean myself off the standalone app but another major reason to do so is opening threads in separate tabs. I find as soon as I'm involved in two or more conversations on there it's super easy to start losing track of things.

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#94

Post by prmph »

ajross wrote: post #82
Robdel12 wrote: post #37

I’ve been tempted to buy one and do “real dev work” on it just to show people it’s not this handicapped little machine. I built multiple iOS apps and went through two start up acquisitions with my M1 MBA as my primary computer, as a developer. And the neo is better than the M1 MBA. I edited my 30-45 min long 4k race videos in FCP on that air just fine.

> I’ve been tempted to buy one and do “real dev work” on it just to show people it’s not this handicapped little machine. But... you can do the same exercise with a $350 windows thing. Everyone knows you can do "real dev work" on it, because "real dev work" isn't a performance case anymore, hasn't been for like a decade now, and anyone who says otherwise is just a snob wanting an excuse to expense a $4k designer fash…

No, you can't do real work on a $350 windows machine. No way such a setup is suitable for anything beyond browsing a tab or two and connecting to servers using SSH.

And, the whole shittiness of the experience will even distract you attempting real work: the horrible touchpad, the bad screen, the forced windows updates when you trying to start the machine to do something urgent, ads in Windows, the lack of proper programmability of Windows (unless you use WSL).... Add the fact that the toy is likely to break in a year or two. These issue exist on far more expensive Windows machines, how much more a $350 machine.

Leaving Windows machines and OS behind for more than a decade has been a continuing breath of fresh air. I have several issues with the Apple devices and macOS (as I have with Linux too), but on the whole they are far better than Windows. The only good thing about Windows that I miss on Macs is the file explorer and window management, not sure why Apple stubbornly refuses to copy those.

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#95

Post by anthonySs »

Robdel12 wrote: post #37

I’ve been tempted to buy one and do “real dev work” on it just to show people it’s not this handicapped little machine. I built multiple iOS apps and went through two start up acquisitions with my M1 MBA as my primary computer, as a developer. And the neo is better than the M1 MBA. I edited my 30-45 min long 4k race videos in FCP on that air just fine.

most dev workflows from pre 2021 can probably run just fine on a NEO - i think once you get into conductor / 8 terminals with claude code territory that’s where things start to slow down

i just got an m5 max with 128gb of ram specifically to run local llms

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#98

Post by mikepurvis »

jzebedee wrote: post #79
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does GH actions bill macOS minis 10X?

Mins here being short for minutes, not minis.

And, presumably for a combination of the Mac build (and hardware) being of niche interest and sitting outside the standard Linux workflows so it's annoying to administer. And serving a money-making audience (iOS app devs) who have a revenue stream and see the extra CI cost as worth it.

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#99

Post by alpaca128 »

skybrian wrote: post #84
tjoff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will do real work fine. But slack and a browser will bring it to its knees.

Maybe if you have 100 browser tabs or something silly like that?

A couple YouTube tabs are enough if you leave them running for long enough. Just one YT browser process will easily take up 1-4GB sooner or later.

Re: Big data on the cheapest MacBook

#100

Post by devnotes77 »

ladberg wrote: post #91
__mharrison__ wrote: post #73

When I teach, I use "big data" for data that won't fit in a single machine. "Small data" fits on a single machine in memory and medium data on disk. Having said that duckDB is awesome. I recently ported a 20 year old Python app to modern Python. I made the backend swappable, polars or duckdb. Got a 40-80x speed improvement. Took 2 days.

I'm curious - what were you doing that polars was leaving a 40-80x speedup on the table? I've been happy with it's speed when held correctly, but it's certainly easy to hold it incorrectly and kill your perf if you're not careful

[flagged]
Post reply on HN