4 ms·

A $200 windows laptop is enough to start learning, but it's definitely going to slow you down compared to a better tool. You can make up for it with hard work,

by imagist 10y ago

A $200 windows laptop is enough to start learning, but it's definitely going to slow you down compared to a better tool. You can make up for it with hard work, but I think investing the extra $800 in an MBA is well worth the money if it's even remotely feasible.

pawadu 10y ago
> but it's definitely going to slow you down I see two flaws in your argument: First, you assume that the $200 laptop is slower than the macbook Air. You would be amazed how much horsepower $200 can get you these days. Second, lets say my cheap laptop is 30% slower than your MBA. How many serious projects were abandoned because the hardware was 30% slower than the MBA? How large is that number compared to projects that got abandoned due to, say, lack of motivation? If you want to buy an MBA, fine do it. But don't try to convince others they wont be successful unless they too have an MBA (or a ThinkPad Yoga or a Microsoft Surface or whatever people consider a sign of success in your neighborhood).
- imagist 10y ago
  > First, you assume that the $200 laptop is slower than the macbook Air No, I didn't assume that at all--hardware speed has literally nothing to do with my reasoning. Hardware speed slows you down slightly, but it's a negligible factor next to crappy tooling. The programming infrastructure available for free for Windows is far, far behind that available on Unix systems. And if you use Linux, the tooling is there, but you're going to be fighting with software/firmware that doesn't support Linux for a good portion of your time. > If you want to buy an MBA, fine do it. But don't try to convince others they wont be successful unless they too have an MBA (or a ThinkPad Yoga or a Microsoft Surface or whatever people consider a sign of success in your neighborhood). I specifically said "A $200 windows laptop is enough to start learning". You can definitely be successful with a $200 windows laptop. But, as compared to working with more effective tools, it's going to slow you down. Your comment is a child post to mine, but you haven't responded to anything that I actually said.
  - pawadu 10y ago
    > Your comment is a child post to mine, but you haven't responded to anything that I actually said. Okay, you seem to take this very seriously. But why? All I have said is that you don't need an MBA to be successful. Do you firmly disagree? Anyway, back to your arguments: you claim a lot of issues with windows and linux but you don't give a single real-life example. So basically, citation needed :)
    - imagist 10y ago
      > All I have said is that you don't need an MBA to be successful. If that were all you said, we wouldn't be disagreeing. But that's not all you said. It's ridiculous to claim that all you said was that you don't need an MBA to be successful--anyone can read your previous post and see that you claimed a lot more than that. > Anyway, back to your arguments: you claim a lot of issues with windows and linux but you don't give a single real-life example. So basically, citation needed :) Windows: The default shell is abysmal, PowerShell is geared toward MS-centric programming (which requires other, expensive tools) and still isn't up to par with bash, and bash ports to windows are a bit limited and buggy. Meanwhile, bash isn't even the best shell on Unix systems. Linux: I spent about 4 hours this past weekend getting wireless working on a Dell laptop. It's an 8 year old laptop--newer laptops are less likely to have mature drivers since there's been less time to for drivers to have been produced or released. If you had spent significant time working on these systems, you wouldn't need citations, because you'd have plenty from your personal experience.

by imagist 10y ago

pawadu 10y ago

> but it's definitely going to slow you down I see two flaws in your argument: First, you assume that the $200 laptop is slower than the macbook Air. You would be amazed how much horsepower $200 can get you these days. Second, lets say my cheap laptop is 30% slower than your MBA. How many serious projects were abandoned because the hardware was 30% slower than the MBA? How large is that number compared to projects that got abandoned due to, say, lack of motivation? If you want to buy an MBA, fine do it. But don't try to convince others they wont be successful unless they too have an MBA (or a ThinkPad Yoga or a Microsoft Surface or whatever people consider a sign of success in your neighborhood).

imagist 10y ago
> First, you assume that the $200 laptop is slower than the macbook Air No, I didn't assume that at all--hardware speed has literally nothing to do with my reasoning. Hardware speed slows you down slightly, but it's a negligible factor next to crappy tooling. The programming infrastructure available for free for Windows is far, far behind that available on Unix systems. And if you use Linux, the tooling is there, but you're going to be fighting with software/firmware that doesn't support Linux for a good portion of your time. > If you want to buy an MBA, fine do it. But don't try to convince others they wont be successful unless they too have an MBA (or a ThinkPad Yoga or a Microsoft Surface or whatever people consider a sign of success in your neighborhood). I specifically said "A $200 windows laptop is enough to start learning". You can definitely be successful with a $200 windows laptop. But, as compared to working with more effective tools, it's going to slow you down. Your comment is a child post to mine, but you haven't responded to anything that I actually said.
- pawadu 10y ago
  > Your comment is a child post to mine, but you haven't responded to anything that I actually said. Okay, you seem to take this very seriously. But why? All I have said is that you don't need an MBA to be successful. Do you firmly disagree? Anyway, back to your arguments: you claim a lot of issues with windows and linux but you don't give a single real-life example. So basically, citation needed :)
  - imagist 10y ago
    > All I have said is that you don't need an MBA to be successful. If that were all you said, we wouldn't be disagreeing. But that's not all you said. It's ridiculous to claim that all you said was that you don't need an MBA to be successful--anyone can read your previous post and see that you claimed a lot more than that. > Anyway, back to your arguments: you claim a lot of issues with windows and linux but you don't give a single real-life example. So basically, citation needed :) Windows: The default shell is abysmal, PowerShell is geared toward MS-centric programming (which requires other, expensive tools) and still isn't up to par with bash, and bash ports to windows are a bit limited and buggy. Meanwhile, bash isn't even the best shell on Unix systems. Linux: I spent about 4 hours this past weekend getting wireless working on a Dell laptop. It's an 8 year old laptop--newer laptops are less likely to have mature drivers since there's been less time to for drivers to have been produced or released. If you had spent significant time working on these systems, you wouldn't need citations, because you'd have plenty from your personal experience.