18 ms·

What Pro Computing Could Be

81 points by bouncingsoul 10y ago

dfabulich 10y ago
> We wrote the beginnings of an operating system I want better hardware, but as a pro software developer, I can't really adopt a fundamentally different operating system, even if it is "better." I don't care how nice your hand-crafted kernel is; if I can't run a JVM, Node.js, and the Android toolchain on it, I can't do my professional work on it.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  And that's not even getting to the tricky parts like virtualization or CUDA drivers.
- mamcx 10y ago
  I have dreams about this, and think the bare os must be a kind of hypervisor. Then, on-top, you can launch "classic" OS like windows, linux, etc. Then also, the new OS.
  - abm2205 10y ago
    i've had the same thoughts. I think the future might be hyper-visors hosting operating systems of all types, each one serving a singular purpose for which is configured to serve most optimally.
    - inimino 10y ago
      From a UI perspective, how is this any better than just running your preferred OS and firing up a VM when you need to?
- Corrado 10y ago
  I don't know about that. NExT was pretty revolutionary and it worked really, really well. If they could have gotten the hardware price down to something a college student could afford I might be typing this on a completely different stack. Sometimes a radical shift is what's needed. Apple is the new Microsoft and might just be ripe for a disturbance.
gulpahum 10y ago
Interesting that he mentions Bret Victor. He was actually one of the designers of the much criticised touch bar [1][2]. He is also working on some other changes for Apple. [1] https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848 [2] https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/793501918790242304 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/793501918790242304
donatj 10y ago
Now is the time for a Plan 9 based upstart!
buzzybee 10y ago
Yes, I definitely feel this is in the air. There's groundwork and momentum to iterate on large chunks of the computing stack, simplify and open up more of it again, and it could be driven in part by the needs of "pros" who are frustrated with the current environment, as well as new markets like IoT. Just think of these three projects and what they add up to: * RISC-V * Rust * WebAssembly The first, RISC-V, breaks with existing architectures. The spec is open, and public feedback is largely positive. Money has been committed to real implementations on silicon. There is common tooling already, and it's expected to grow more robust. Rust sits in the middle, iterating on systems-level concerns with a much higher standard of compiler tech. Everyone praises its community and the responsiveness of the devs. It isn't the only player in the field for overturning C and C++, but it has a lot of the momentum. And, of course, WebAssembly doesn't fix the Web, but it does return us to the idea of what Java was supposed to be, 20 years ago - a common layer for sandboxed application code. Of the three this one is probably the least established, but is also getting an amount of care and cooperation that is quite above average for Web technologies, and shows early signs of reaching adoption outside of the browser context. With such a powerful client runtime, both the existing Web and desktop paradigms become open to disruption, as is already in nascent form with the current wave of "desktop framework, browser engine inside" apps. When you put together all three, you have a much more robust stack, something that you can really imagine the future of computing on. It has missing parts, but that might be where you and I come in.
captainmuon 10y ago
So, what would a pro laptop look like in my opinion? Not too different from todays top laptops, but a few things would be improved: - Easier to repair / upgrade. Dont glue or solder in parts if it is not absolutely neccessary. If the device gets a few mm thicker, its not the end of the world. - Specifically, make the battery switchable. There is a battery capacity limit for flights in the US, and I've heard this is one reason the new MacBook Pro has the specs it has. A switchable battery would be a way around it. - Be completely honest about your incentives, and then side with the customer. Say: "We would like to glue down everything, so you can't repair it and have to buy a new one when the battery fails - but we won't." This is a business disadvantage in the short term, but you gain trust and can charge more to customers who know what's important. - Give it a matte, high-dpi touchscreen. Note, I don't mean mattED, where you stick a matting foil on top of a regular glass screen. I mean native matte, like good business desktop LCD screens. - Here is an important, overlooked point: Make it "just work". In the sense of "software eats the world", you can do a lot by getting the software right. Have a dedicated team make sure that all popular OSes (Linuxes, Windows) work properly. - A good keyboard is really important. Let the keys have enough travel, make sure that they have standard sizes, that cursor and home/end keys are easily reachable. - Give customers the ports they need, or at least make the dongles cheap. Offer a docking station, or recommend one. (- And if you want to create a Myth, source your components (graphics, WiFi card, touchpad) cleverly, and people will be able to make Hackintoshes out of your machines. Just be careful never to advertise this, or to give instructions :-D.) I believe a smaller vendor could pull this off nowadays. Even if you don't have the economies of scale, you are selling to a pro segement who is willing to pay more for a "no-comprimizes" device. (Edit: cleaned up)
- matt4077 10y ago
  The reason for glued-down batteries is not planned obsolesces. You can get the battery replaced for 150$, which is about as much as Lenovo's batteries cost. The reason is that a removable battery needs twice as much enclosures as a non-removable one, adding something like 1/5 of an inch to the thickness. The second reason is that Apple has switched to shaped batteries basically filling any available space, which makes removability as good as impossible. A third reason is that nobody actually wants removable batteries. An MBP gets 10 hours of battery life, 13 if you're on a plane and turn off the wireless. Add an hour of food service to it and you're good to go around the world. If that's not enough, you can just get an external battery.
matt4077 10y ago
"In conversation over two years ago, we converged on an assumption: Apple and Microsoft will taper off their investments in pro hardware and software" If it took you two years to get that far, you may want to find some less stressful topics to ponder. Also, please enlighten me: what exactly is Microsoft's previous investment in "pro hardware"? And what "pro software" has Microsoft been investing in in the past that targets "video editors, 3D modelers, audio engineers, data scientists"? WTF? This article is almost literally "The MacBook sucks, my friend agrees and we've been throwing around buzzwords and then we stopped" Seriously: there's no coherent thought in this "article". I don't even know what these so-called "professionals" are missing in the author's view. " fast machines with plenty of memory and myriad ways of moving data in, out, and around them." – Well, yeah, fast is great. But it's not Apple's fault that CPU speeds are stagnating. It's simply approaching physical limits, as well as CPUs having reached a level of performance where people prefer to invest resources into power efficiency. AS one of those so-called "data scientists" I'll also let you in on a trade secret: the stuff I do on a notebook could comfortably run on a phone. It's a text editor, a browser, and ssh. That's because we don't do number crunching on a notebook. It's a cluster, or sometimes a workstation with a couple of GPUs. Everybody also seems to miss that we've seen an actual leap in notebook performance: SSDs had a huge impact because HDDs were (by far) the limiting factor for almost all workloads. Regarding the "myriad ways to move data around" – no thanks. Now I'd consider it quite failure to ever have actual data on a notebook. But I'd guess even if you're working on local data, USB 3.1 and thunderbolt are probably what you'd want to use? "Pros don’t quit because their tools are suboptimal." Yeah, they do. Give someone a shovel and ask them to dig a tunnel. "That’s practically the definition of “professional” – a pro gets the damn thing done." No, the definition of a professional is "getting paid", which, by the way, separates them from your little thought experiment. Alternatively, "professional" is slang for a prostitute, which actually does fit your definition of "getting the damn thing done", so maybe I've been reading this wrong. "That cycle of dependence, along with the need for stability and predictability in one’s tools, makes product incrementalism the norm in pro computing." I still don't know what "pro computing" is, but surely "pros" are today using the same operating systems as "non-pro" are? So the non-professional computing is also moving incrementally, right? Then I don't get why you're trying to derive some sort of causality ("need for stability...") that's specific for one of the two segments when they move in parallel. "It should be no surprise as to why nobody has attempted the sort of ground-up overhauling of pro computing that we mapped out: it’s expensive, slow, and risky to do something big, new, and different." Or maybe it's just stupid. Because our tools are pretty good (being the product of actual professionals "getting the job done") and there's no reason to throw them out for unnamed pie-in-the-sky fantasies.
montj2 10y ago
I feel this and believe it to be spot on. Looking to be an early defector, a thorough survey of the hardware landscape has left me in awe of the amazing hardware companies are willing to cram into such a cut-rate shit of a package. On the software front, macOS is such a 'get shit done' OS, but I believe that may be solely due to the having the lions share of the development community's mind-share. It is for that reason I've decided to fund a multitude of 'hopefuls' and fully immerse myself into a foreign OS platform. If it's going to get better we must all embrace the suck as it is today and begin to develop the future.
jwr 10y ago
> Pros don’t quit because their tools are suboptimal. That’s practically the definition of “professional” – a pro gets the damn thing done. A pro user might gripe about the new MacBook Pro, but the next time she needs a new machine, she’s going to buy one anyway because that’s the path of least resistance and she needs to get back to work. This sums up perfectly my thoughts about Apple hardware right now. I am annoyed by the fact that I won't be able to connect any of my devices to the new MacBook Pro, but I'll buy one anyway, because I need to get things done to earn money. I also agree that the pro market is ripe for disruption (again). Interestingly enough, Apple began its rise to stardom from the pro segment, which it is now abandoning. Foolishly, I think, because it's a relatively easy disruption path for the next company.
- dingaling 10y ago
  "Pros don’t quit because their tools are suboptimal." Indeed they don't quit. Quite the opposite, pros dump sub-optimal tools ASAP and buy something decent to finish the job. The productivity of a tool that meets requirements hugely outweighs any additional cost. In the UK Draper brand hand-tools were well regarded until the 2000s, when they started applying their brand to cheaply-manufactured tools from China. Word of insufficient quality and durability spread amongst 'pro' users who quickly stopped buying them. Draper later tried to reintroduce a 'Draper Pro' line with higher quality but the brand was irrepariably tainted. Now they're mainly found in the hands of occasional DIYers who remember the brand name.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Speaking of hand tools, is there anything between something like Xuron / Xcelite / CHP and Erem? $100 for a pair of diagonal cutters is too much but the rivet on my CHP PN2007 sheared when using it for some heavier-but-not-IMO-abusive work. I don't mind paying $20-40 for a good set.
    - lebski88 10y ago
      Knippex might fit the bill.
vomitcuddle 10y ago
The "pros" aren't simply pissed off at the latest MBP. We're pissed off at the continuing trend over the last 5 years of Apple products becoming more difficult or nearly impossible to disassemble, upgrade and repair. We're tired of form over function. Sales targets over user experience.
- NTripleOne 10y ago
  if form over function was an issue to you to begin with then you wouldn't have bought apple in the first place.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  I haven't had a need to open a computer in like 16 years. Well that's not entirely true. I one time upgraded the HDD on my old MacBook Pro maybe 6 years ago. There just isn't a need to do this stuff anymore. Even making your own computer anymore in expensive, confusing, and generally not fun anymore.
  - Accacin 10y ago
    Oh come on that's completely false. Building your own computer now is easier than it's ever been and can be a lot more cost efficient than buying something pre-built. Not everyone wants to build there own of course, but saying it's expensive, confusing and not fun isn't really true.
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      Please dont tell me my personal experience is false.
      - inimino 10y ago
        You didn't phrase it as a personal experience. You could have just said "not fun for me anymore". Instead, you implied the world has changed, when it could be just you.
kluck 10y ago
Here is an easy alternative to a MacBook Pro (easy for a professional anyway): Buy a standard Laptop with matte display. Install Arch Linux (learn one thing or another on the way). Use Gnome 3 (maybe install some software from Pantheon as well, like the file manager pantheon-files). Get work done.
- mping 10y ago
  Agreed. Everyone calls themselves pros, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty with Linux. Basically everyone's a pro-sumer. When I go to the mechanic he doesn't care if the tools get him dirty, he uses the best tools for the job, not for his clothes. I get that some people want to look at gorgeous UIs but nobody told me how that gets the work done. I want to use the best tool, and I try to define best as objectively as possible. Faster CPUs is better. Native support for docker is better. Walled garden is worse. macOs is better if you do ios apps. UI look&feel is debatable. Preference on terminal emulator is debatable. More memory is better. If you do devops and ssh onto linux boxes, linux is better. etc.
  - matt4077 10y ago
    That's quite a romanticized stereotype of a mechanic. It's also the wrong analogy. The computer, in that analogy, is his tool. It may be the "best for the job", but the mechanic isn't usually mucking around in its internals. When the hydraulic ramp is broken, he calls someone. There is absolutely no need for someone writing software to ever open up his computer, or to compile the kernel they're running natively (if you're actually working at kernel-level, you'll do most of it in VMs). All that stuff can be fun, no doubt. But it's your hobby, and really no reason to feel like a superior "professional" vs. the lower classes of "prosumers".
    - mping 10y ago
      My point is that the fact that you need to recompile a kernel or do some pkg install to get (for example) a machine that supports 32gb is never an excuse NOT to get it. And people do open their laptops (ex: upgrade from HDD to SSD) or install new kernels (ex: docker support). Don't take my post as a superior class claim. If I say I am a pro, and I say I need 32 gb I go and get it. Don't care if I have to spend a day installing arch because 32gb are worth it. Ofc theres all shades of gray and I understand people like to look to antialiased fonts instead of green-on-black, or don't like to learn a new package manager syntax but please that is absolutely not directly related to the delivery. The time you spend configuring a system is completely amortised over time, if the system is better.
pavelludiq 10y ago
My list of essentials for a pro computer at this point would be: * Robustness * Upgradeability * longevity * reasonable performance Having the latest and greatest isn't essential, since I've had my current pair of thinkpad and custom build desktop for a few years now and after a some upgrades(new SSDs, maybe a new GPU and extra RAM for the desktop, etc.) I expect to use them for a few more, maybe even until 2020, if nothing blows out. They perform reasonably well for my needs and are very versatile machines. Right now I can replace the HDD, upgrade the M2 SSD, put a new screen on my laptop and replace the battery myself. That is worth a lot to me and I'm willing to pay more for a machine that isn't a sealed monolith, that is the biggest anti-feature for me. I grew up back when you could just open up your PC case and swap components out and I'm absolutely unwilling to give that up. I don't really want to buy a new laptop every two years, if I do now it will be because I want one, not because I need one.
- hvidgaard 10y ago
  I'm always online when I work, so I dream about a different beast. I want a thin client that interface to a beast of a machine in the server room. I means I can work in my office with multiple screens, or I can sit in a sofa at home, or at my home setup. All with the same machine just a different interfaces. That way I don't need power in a laptop, I just need reasonable connectivity. I know not all workloads can work this way, but a lot of it can.
- ikurei 10y ago
  > put a new screen on my laptop What laptop do you have where the screen is upgradeable? Or are you talking about doing it with a standard laptop, opening it up and replacing the panel? Is that usually viable with laptops? The main reason I prefer my current MBP to my previous Toshiba Portege is, tbh, that the screen is not a shitty 1360x768. I never even thought about replacing it.
marmaduke 10y ago
Pro computing could also mean moving to a more open hardware platform; consider Talos workstation with a Power8 CPU instead of x86 https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-s... I've had a chance to test some Power8 systems, and they perform very well. Given the choice, I'd take one over a Xeon system, for intensive professional work.
dognotdog 10y ago
> What’s more, we lack the innovative institutions that previously provided cover for the future to take shape: PARC, Bell Labs, et. al. We may not have as large corporate sponsored basic research, but we do have the Internet. We should be able to leverage that advantage to some effect :)
mark_l_watson 10y ago
Everyone has different needs. My 95 year old father is really into videography and 3D animation so he uses a max-out Mac Pro desktop. For me, I sometimes need large memory and a lot of cores, so I keep a beefy VPS handy. The actual computer I use is less important.
imtringued 10y ago
The next innovation is going to be non volatile RAM. Right now we can get away with putting a flash chip on a DIMM and using super capacitors to write out changes during power loss but it's a ugly and expensive solution. Maybe NVDIMMs with 3D XPoint will change this but it's far off and it will take a while until it reaches the consumer market.
hulahoof 10y ago
I do most of my work on a cheap, light Toshiba because the battery last me all day and carrying my metabox everywhere was hurting my back.

81 points by bouncingsoul 10y ago

> We wrote the beginnings of an operating system I want better hardware, but as a pro software developer, I can't really adopt a fundamentally different operating system, even if it is "better." I don't care how nice your hand-crafted kernel is; if I can't run a JVM, Node.js, and the Android toolchain on it, I can't do my professional work on it.

Eridrus 10y ago
And that's not even getting to the tricky parts like virtualization or CUDA drivers.
mamcx 10y ago
I have dreams about this, and think the bare os must be a kind of hypervisor. Then, on-top, you can launch "classic" OS like windows, linux, etc. Then also, the new OS.
- abm2205 10y ago
  i've had the same thoughts. I think the future might be hyper-visors hosting operating systems of all types, each one serving a singular purpose for which is configured to serve most optimally.
  - inimino 10y ago
    From a UI perspective, how is this any better than just running your preferred OS and firing up a VM when you need to?
Corrado 10y ago
I don't know about that. NExT was pretty revolutionary and it worked really, really well. If they could have gotten the hardware price down to something a college student could afford I might be typing this on a completely different stack. Sometimes a radical shift is what's needed. Apple is the new Microsoft and might just be ripe for a disturbance.

gulpahum 10y ago

Interesting that he mentions Bret Victor. He was actually one of the designers of the much criticised touch bar [1][2]. He is also working on some other changes for Apple. [1] https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848 [2] https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/793501918790242304 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/793501918790242304

donatj 10y ago

Now is the time for a Plan 9 based upstart!

buzzybee 10y ago

Yes, I definitely feel this is in the air. There's groundwork and momentum to iterate on large chunks of the computing stack, simplify and open up more of it again, and it could be driven in part by the needs of "pros" who are frustrated with the current environment, as well as new markets like IoT. Just think of these three projects and what they add up to: * RISC-V * Rust * WebAssembly The first, RISC-V, breaks with existing architectures. The spec is open, and public feedback is largely positive. Money has been committed to real implementations on silicon. There is common tooling already, and it's expected to grow more robust. Rust sits in the middle, iterating on systems-level concerns with a much higher standard of compiler tech. Everyone praises its community and the responsiveness of the devs. It isn't the only player in the field for overturning C and C++, but it has a lot of the momentum. And, of course, WebAssembly doesn't fix the Web, but it does return us to the idea of what Java was supposed to be, 20 years ago - a common layer for sandboxed application code. Of the three this one is probably the least established, but is also getting an amount of care and cooperation that is quite above average for Web technologies, and shows early signs of reaching adoption outside of the browser context. With such a powerful client runtime, both the existing Web and desktop paradigms become open to disruption, as is already in nascent form with the current wave of "desktop framework, browser engine inside" apps. When you put together all three, you have a much more robust stack, something that you can really imagine the future of computing on. It has missing parts, but that might be where you and I come in.

captainmuon 10y ago

So, what would a pro laptop look like in my opinion? Not too different from todays top laptops, but a few things would be improved: - Easier to repair / upgrade. Dont glue or solder in parts if it is not absolutely neccessary. If the device gets a few mm thicker, its not the end of the world. - Specifically, make the battery switchable. There is a battery capacity limit for flights in the US, and I've heard this is one reason the new MacBook Pro has the specs it has. A switchable battery would be a way around it. - Be completely honest about your incentives, and then side with the customer. Say: "We would like to glue down everything, so you can't repair it and have to buy a new one when the battery fails - but we won't." This is a business disadvantage in the short term, but you gain trust and can charge more to customers who know what's important. - Give it a matte, high-dpi touchscreen. Note, I don't mean mattED, where you stick a matting foil on top of a regular glass screen. I mean native matte, like good business desktop LCD screens. - Here is an important, overlooked point: Make it "just work". In the sense of "software eats the world", you can do a lot by getting the software right. Have a dedicated team make sure that all popular OSes (Linuxes, Windows) work properly. - A good keyboard is really important. Let the keys have enough travel, make sure that they have standard sizes, that cursor and home/end keys are easily reachable. - Give customers the ports they need, or at least make the dongles cheap. Offer a docking station, or recommend one. (- And if you want to create a Myth, source your components (graphics, WiFi card, touchpad) cleverly, and people will be able to make Hackintoshes out of your machines. Just be careful never to advertise this, or to give instructions :-D.) I believe a smaller vendor could pull this off nowadays. Even if you don't have the economies of scale, you are selling to a pro segement who is willing to pay more for a "no-comprimizes" device. (Edit: cleaned up)

matt4077 10y ago
The reason for glued-down batteries is not planned obsolesces. You can get the battery replaced for 150$, which is about as much as Lenovo's batteries cost. The reason is that a removable battery needs twice as much enclosures as a non-removable one, adding something like 1/5 of an inch to the thickness. The second reason is that Apple has switched to shaped batteries basically filling any available space, which makes removability as good as impossible. A third reason is that nobody actually wants removable batteries. An MBP gets 10 hours of battery life, 13 if you're on a plane and turn off the wireless. Add an hour of food service to it and you're good to go around the world. If that's not enough, you can just get an external battery.

matt4077 10y ago

"In conversation over two years ago, we converged on an assumption: Apple and Microsoft will taper off their investments in pro hardware and software" If it took you two years to get that far, you may want to find some less stressful topics to ponder. Also, please enlighten me: what exactly is Microsoft's previous investment in "pro hardware"? And what "pro software" has Microsoft been investing in in the past that targets "video editors, 3D modelers, audio engineers, data scientists"? WTF? This article is almost literally "The MacBook sucks, my friend agrees and we've been throwing around buzzwords and then we stopped" Seriously: there's no coherent thought in this "article". I don't even know what these so-called "professionals" are missing in the author's view. " fast machines with plenty of memory and myriad ways of moving data in, out, and around them." – Well, yeah, fast is great. But it's not Apple's fault that CPU speeds are stagnating. It's simply approaching physical limits, as well as CPUs having reached a level of performance where people prefer to invest resources into power efficiency. AS one of those so-called "data scientists" I'll also let you in on a trade secret: the stuff I do on a notebook could comfortably run on a phone. It's a text editor, a browser, and ssh. That's because we don't do number crunching on a notebook. It's a cluster, or sometimes a workstation with a couple of GPUs. Everybody also seems to miss that we've seen an actual leap in notebook performance: SSDs had a huge impact because HDDs were (by far) the limiting factor for almost all workloads. Regarding the "myriad ways to move data around" – no thanks. Now I'd consider it quite failure to ever have actual data on a notebook. But I'd guess even if you're working on local data, USB 3.1 and thunderbolt are probably what you'd want to use? "Pros don’t quit because their tools are suboptimal." Yeah, they do. Give someone a shovel and ask them to dig a tunnel. "That’s practically the definition of “professional” – a pro gets the damn thing done." No, the definition of a professional is "getting paid", which, by the way, separates them from your little thought experiment. Alternatively, "professional" is slang for a prostitute, which actually does fit your definition of "getting the damn thing done", so maybe I've been reading this wrong. "That cycle of dependence, along with the need for stability and predictability in one’s tools, makes product incrementalism the norm in pro computing." I still don't know what "pro computing" is, but surely "pros" are today using the same operating systems as "non-pro" are? So the non-professional computing is also moving incrementally, right? Then I don't get why you're trying to derive some sort of causality ("need for stability...") that's specific for one of the two segments when they move in parallel. "It should be no surprise as to why nobody has attempted the sort of ground-up overhauling of pro computing that we mapped out: it’s expensive, slow, and risky to do something big, new, and different." Or maybe it's just stupid. Because our tools are pretty good (being the product of actual professionals "getting the job done") and there's no reason to throw them out for unnamed pie-in-the-sky fantasies.

montj2 10y ago

I feel this and believe it to be spot on. Looking to be an early defector, a thorough survey of the hardware landscape has left me in awe of the amazing hardware companies are willing to cram into such a cut-rate shit of a package. On the software front, macOS is such a 'get shit done' OS, but I believe that may be solely due to the having the lions share of the development community's mind-share. It is for that reason I've decided to fund a multitude of 'hopefuls' and fully immerse myself into a foreign OS platform. If it's going to get better we must all embrace the suck as it is today and begin to develop the future.

jwr 10y ago

> Pros don’t quit because their tools are suboptimal. That’s practically the definition of “professional” – a pro gets the damn thing done. A pro user might gripe about the new MacBook Pro, but the next time she needs a new machine, she’s going to buy one anyway because that’s the path of least resistance and she needs to get back to work. This sums up perfectly my thoughts about Apple hardware right now. I am annoyed by the fact that I won't be able to connect any of my devices to the new MacBook Pro, but I'll buy one anyway, because I need to get things done to earn money. I also agree that the pro market is ripe for disruption (again). Interestingly enough, Apple began its rise to stardom from the pro segment, which it is now abandoning. Foolishly, I think, because it's a relatively easy disruption path for the next company.

dingaling 10y ago
"Pros don’t quit because their tools are suboptimal." Indeed they don't quit. Quite the opposite, pros dump sub-optimal tools ASAP and buy something decent to finish the job. The productivity of a tool that meets requirements hugely outweighs any additional cost. In the UK Draper brand hand-tools were well regarded until the 2000s, when they started applying their brand to cheaply-manufactured tools from China. Word of insufficient quality and durability spread amongst 'pro' users who quickly stopped buying them. Draper later tried to reintroduce a 'Draper Pro' line with higher quality but the brand was irrepariably tainted. Now they're mainly found in the hands of occasional DIYers who remember the brand name.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Speaking of hand tools, is there anything between something like Xuron / Xcelite / CHP and Erem? $100 for a pair of diagonal cutters is too much but the rivet on my CHP PN2007 sheared when using it for some heavier-but-not-IMO-abusive work. I don't mind paying $20-40 for a good set.
  - lebski88 10y ago
    Knippex might fit the bill.

vomitcuddle 10y ago

The "pros" aren't simply pissed off at the latest MBP. We're pissed off at the continuing trend over the last 5 years of Apple products becoming more difficult or nearly impossible to disassemble, upgrade and repair. We're tired of form over function. Sales targets over user experience.

NTripleOne 10y ago
if form over function was an issue to you to begin with then you wouldn't have bought apple in the first place.
jonathankoren 10y ago
I haven't had a need to open a computer in like 16 years. Well that's not entirely true. I one time upgraded the HDD on my old MacBook Pro maybe 6 years ago. There just isn't a need to do this stuff anymore. Even making your own computer anymore in expensive, confusing, and generally not fun anymore.
- Accacin 10y ago
  Oh come on that's completely false. Building your own computer now is easier than it's ever been and can be a lot more cost efficient than buying something pre-built. Not everyone wants to build there own of course, but saying it's expensive, confusing and not fun isn't really true.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Please dont tell me my personal experience is false.
    - inimino 10y ago
      You didn't phrase it as a personal experience. You could have just said "not fun for me anymore". Instead, you implied the world has changed, when it could be just you.

kluck 10y ago

Here is an easy alternative to a MacBook Pro (easy for a professional anyway): Buy a standard Laptop with matte display. Install Arch Linux (learn one thing or another on the way). Use Gnome 3 (maybe install some software from Pantheon as well, like the file manager pantheon-files). Get work done.

mping 10y ago
Agreed. Everyone calls themselves pros, but nobody wants to get their hands dirty with Linux. Basically everyone's a pro-sumer. When I go to the mechanic he doesn't care if the tools get him dirty, he uses the best tools for the job, not for his clothes. I get that some people want to look at gorgeous UIs but nobody told me how that gets the work done. I want to use the best tool, and I try to define best as objectively as possible. Faster CPUs is better. Native support for docker is better. Walled garden is worse. macOs is better if you do ios apps. UI look&feel is debatable. Preference on terminal emulator is debatable. More memory is better. If you do devops and ssh onto linux boxes, linux is better. etc.
- matt4077 10y ago
  That's quite a romanticized stereotype of a mechanic. It's also the wrong analogy. The computer, in that analogy, is his tool. It may be the "best for the job", but the mechanic isn't usually mucking around in its internals. When the hydraulic ramp is broken, he calls someone. There is absolutely no need for someone writing software to ever open up his computer, or to compile the kernel they're running natively (if you're actually working at kernel-level, you'll do most of it in VMs). All that stuff can be fun, no doubt. But it's your hobby, and really no reason to feel like a superior "professional" vs. the lower classes of "prosumers".
  - mping 10y ago
    My point is that the fact that you need to recompile a kernel or do some pkg install to get (for example) a machine that supports 32gb is never an excuse NOT to get it. And people do open their laptops (ex: upgrade from HDD to SSD) or install new kernels (ex: docker support). Don't take my post as a superior class claim. If I say I am a pro, and I say I need 32 gb I go and get it. Don't care if I have to spend a day installing arch because 32gb are worth it. Ofc theres all shades of gray and I understand people like to look to antialiased fonts instead of green-on-black, or don't like to learn a new package manager syntax but please that is absolutely not directly related to the delivery. The time you spend configuring a system is completely amortised over time, if the system is better.

pavelludiq 10y ago

My list of essentials for a pro computer at this point would be: * Robustness * Upgradeability * longevity * reasonable performance Having the latest and greatest isn't essential, since I've had my current pair of thinkpad and custom build desktop for a few years now and after a some upgrades(new SSDs, maybe a new GPU and extra RAM for the desktop, etc.) I expect to use them for a few more, maybe even until 2020, if nothing blows out. They perform reasonably well for my needs and are very versatile machines. Right now I can replace the HDD, upgrade the M2 SSD, put a new screen on my laptop and replace the battery myself. That is worth a lot to me and I'm willing to pay more for a machine that isn't a sealed monolith, that is the biggest anti-feature for me. I grew up back when you could just open up your PC case and swap components out and I'm absolutely unwilling to give that up. I don't really want to buy a new laptop every two years, if I do now it will be because I want one, not because I need one.

hvidgaard 10y ago
I'm always online when I work, so I dream about a different beast. I want a thin client that interface to a beast of a machine in the server room. I means I can work in my office with multiple screens, or I can sit in a sofa at home, or at my home setup. All with the same machine just a different interfaces. That way I don't need power in a laptop, I just need reasonable connectivity. I know not all workloads can work this way, but a lot of it can.
ikurei 10y ago
> put a new screen on my laptop What laptop do you have where the screen is upgradeable? Or are you talking about doing it with a standard laptop, opening it up and replacing the panel? Is that usually viable with laptops? The main reason I prefer my current MBP to my previous Toshiba Portege is, tbh, that the screen is not a shitty 1360x768. I never even thought about replacing it.

marmaduke 10y ago

Pro computing could also mean moving to a more open hardware platform; consider Talos workstation with a Power8 CPU instead of x86 https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-secure-workstation https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-s... I've had a chance to test some Power8 systems, and they perform very well. Given the choice, I'd take one over a Xeon system, for intensive professional work.

dognotdog 10y ago

> What’s more, we lack the innovative institutions that previously provided cover for the future to take shape: PARC, Bell Labs, et. al. We may not have as large corporate sponsored basic research, but we do have the Internet. We should be able to leverage that advantage to some effect :)

mark_l_watson 10y ago

Everyone has different needs. My 95 year old father is really into videography and 3D animation so he uses a max-out Mac Pro desktop. For me, I sometimes need large memory and a lot of cores, so I keep a beefy VPS handy. The actual computer I use is less important.

imtringued 10y ago

The next innovation is going to be non volatile RAM. Right now we can get away with putting a flash chip on a DIMM and using super capacitors to write out changes during power loss but it's a ugly and expensive solution. Maybe NVDIMMs with 3D XPoint will change this but it's far off and it will take a while until it reaches the consumer market.

hulahoof 10y ago

I do most of my work on a cheap, light Toshiba because the battery last me all day and carrying my metabox everywhere was hurting my back.