3 ms·

An especially unfortunate truth is that many developers have grown so afraid of workflow-breaking bugs that they're willing to risk security flaws just so they

An especially unfortunate truth is that many developers have grown so afraid of workflow-breaking bugs that they're willing to risk security flaws just so they can get work done. The things I would do (and pay) for 2010-Apple tier hardware built for CentOS in both laptop and phone form factors...

notadoc 9y ago
> An especially unfortunate truth is that many developers have grown so afraid of workflow-breaking bugs that they're willing to risk security flaws just so they can get work done. Can't blame them. Ultimately, it's productivity that pays the bills.
linkmotif 9y ago
> The things I would do (and pay) for 2010-Apple tier hardware built for CentOS Isn’t it remarkable this still doesn’t exist? Build quality still does not compare in the PC world. Yet, I’m on a MBA3,2 (late 2010) and it’s great. Still running Yosemite. It’s got 4gb ram but handles running 10 JVMs with modest heaps for development no problem. Stable and runs for months without issue. I’d love more RAM and more cores but none of these computers seem worth it. I considered buying a 2015 MPB the other month only to learn that Apple glues the battery to the top case. So to replace the battery you need to replace the whole top case. Insane.
- 0xabe 9y ago
  “Insanely great”
- eropple 9y ago
  > Isn’t it remarkable this still doesn’t exist? Build quality still does not compare in the PC world. Razer comes close, though I wouldn't buy them because of the compensating-for-something #branding on the machines. The Alienware 13 I can personally vouch for as being better than my last MacBook Pro for sure. And the keyboard is like an old ThinkPad's but not quite so heavy. Still not a fan of the alien logo, but at least it's tiny.
- somethingsimple 9y ago
  > Yet, I’m on a MBA3,2 (late 2010) and it’s great. Still running Yosemite. It’s got 4gb ram but handles running 10 JVMs with modest heaps for development no problem. Stable and runs for months without issue. I’d love more RAM and more cores but none of these computers seem worth it. I have the same hardware but unfortunately my experience is the exact opposite. It’s barely usable. I literally can’t browse JavaScript-heavy websites (e.g. Gmail). I wonder if having kept up with the OS releases has anything to do with it (I’m on High Sierra).
  - linkmotif 9y ago
    Weird! I’m sorry to hear that. My fan starts whirring on video/graphics heavy sites, like landing pages with huge videos or overwrought effects. But sites like Gmail are totally fine. Maybe it is the OS updates? I almost pulled the trigger and updated the other day but I’ll hold off now with this story. Gah, that is frustrating.
  - tomxor 9y ago
    I'm using an MBP5,1 (2 years older than yours) as my main personal machine still, it's quite comparable to your MBA3,1, (P8600 vs SL9600), both Core2Duo roughly same clock speed, same RAM and bus speed etc, but different GPUs, also I added an x25-M SSD back when that was "new" :P it's lasted well... I'll admit some of the really heavy websites are crap, but that's mostly because the websites are crap and wont be smooth on anything than the latest i7. Generally I have no problem with gmail or google maps which are reasonably heavy. Depending on what version of OS X you are using that might be the culprit, OS X is a pretty heavy OS, especially post 10.6. For me 10.6 was o-k but changing to linux and a tiling window manager freed up a lot of resources, I never end up paging out with web browsing even though it's only 4GiB, additionally I find graphics are faster on linux but that may be GPU and driver specific due to Apple's underclocking tactics. If I hadn't switched I would probably have ditched this hardware by now. Alternatively the GPU difference between these machines may explain web browsing speed considering how much stuff is hardware accelerated these days. I think this era of hardware is pretty linux friendly if you wanted to try it, you don't have dual GPU which is the biggest pain for linux too... there is no issue with mac EFI from grub anymore so should be zero configuration install for you, at the most you might have to manually select the proprietary drivers for your GPU for reasonable performance.
ajmurmann 9y ago
It's not always even bugs though. I remember back in ~2013 OS X updates would regularly break my Postgres setup because Apple like to muck around with it on every release. Postgres.app solved that, but the disregard for developer issues has been somewhat annoying since a longer time. And then you have a IDE like XCode that feels many years behind any JetBrains IDE lacking basic refactoring tools.
voltagex_ 9y ago
Have you tried a Dell XPS 9350?
Decade 9y ago
> 2010-Apple tier hardware built for CentOS Librem? https://puri.sm https://puri.sm

notadoc 9y ago

> An especially unfortunate truth is that many developers have grown so afraid of workflow-breaking bugs that they're willing to risk security flaws just so they can get work done. Can't blame them. Ultimately, it's productivity that pays the bills.

linkmotif 9y ago

> The things I would do (and pay) for 2010-Apple tier hardware built for CentOS Isn’t it remarkable this still doesn’t exist? Build quality still does not compare in the PC world. Yet, I’m on a MBA3,2 (late 2010) and it’s great. Still running Yosemite. It’s got 4gb ram but handles running 10 JVMs with modest heaps for development no problem. Stable and runs for months without issue. I’d love more RAM and more cores but none of these computers seem worth it. I considered buying a 2015 MPB the other month only to learn that Apple glues the battery to the top case. So to replace the battery you need to replace the whole top case. Insane.

0xabe 9y ago
“Insanely great”
eropple 9y ago
> Isn’t it remarkable this still doesn’t exist? Build quality still does not compare in the PC world. Razer comes close, though I wouldn't buy them because of the compensating-for-something #branding on the machines. The Alienware 13 I can personally vouch for as being better than my last MacBook Pro for sure. And the keyboard is like an old ThinkPad's but not quite so heavy. Still not a fan of the alien logo, but at least it's tiny.
somethingsimple 9y ago
> Yet, I’m on a MBA3,2 (late 2010) and it’s great. Still running Yosemite. It’s got 4gb ram but handles running 10 JVMs with modest heaps for development no problem. Stable and runs for months without issue. I’d love more RAM and more cores but none of these computers seem worth it. I have the same hardware but unfortunately my experience is the exact opposite. It’s barely usable. I literally can’t browse JavaScript-heavy websites (e.g. Gmail). I wonder if having kept up with the OS releases has anything to do with it (I’m on High Sierra).
- linkmotif 9y ago
  Weird! I’m sorry to hear that. My fan starts whirring on video/graphics heavy sites, like landing pages with huge videos or overwrought effects. But sites like Gmail are totally fine. Maybe it is the OS updates? I almost pulled the trigger and updated the other day but I’ll hold off now with this story. Gah, that is frustrating.
- tomxor 9y ago
  I'm using an MBP5,1 (2 years older than yours) as my main personal machine still, it's quite comparable to your MBA3,1, (P8600 vs SL9600), both Core2Duo roughly same clock speed, same RAM and bus speed etc, but different GPUs, also I added an x25-M SSD back when that was "new" :P it's lasted well... I'll admit some of the really heavy websites are crap, but that's mostly because the websites are crap and wont be smooth on anything than the latest i7. Generally I have no problem with gmail or google maps which are reasonably heavy. Depending on what version of OS X you are using that might be the culprit, OS X is a pretty heavy OS, especially post 10.6. For me 10.6 was o-k but changing to linux and a tiling window manager freed up a lot of resources, I never end up paging out with web browsing even though it's only 4GiB, additionally I find graphics are faster on linux but that may be GPU and driver specific due to Apple's underclocking tactics. If I hadn't switched I would probably have ditched this hardware by now. Alternatively the GPU difference between these machines may explain web browsing speed considering how much stuff is hardware accelerated these days. I think this era of hardware is pretty linux friendly if you wanted to try it, you don't have dual GPU which is the biggest pain for linux too... there is no issue with mac EFI from grub anymore so should be zero configuration install for you, at the most you might have to manually select the proprietary drivers for your GPU for reasonable performance.

ajmurmann 9y ago

It's not always even bugs though. I remember back in ~2013 OS X updates would regularly break my Postgres setup because Apple like to muck around with it on every release. Postgres.app solved that, but the disregard for developer issues has been somewhat annoying since a longer time. And then you have a IDE like XCode that feels many years behind any JetBrains IDE lacking basic refactoring tools.

voltagex_ 9y ago

Have you tried a Dell XPS 9350?

Decade 9y ago

> 2010-Apple tier hardware built for CentOS Librem? https://puri.sm https://puri.sm