8 ms·

Specs and spec configurations are only a small piece of what makes a good dev laptop. Is it ergonomic and lightweight? Is the trackpad large and the keyboard co

Specs and spec configurations are only a small piece of what makes a good dev laptop. Is it ergonomic and lightweight? Is the trackpad large and the keyboard comfortable to type on for extended periods of time? How tightly does the hardware integrate with the software (i.e.: can I use multi-touch gestures on the trackpad to move through my environment quickly)? Say what you will about Apple and how they treat developers (read: not well), but the modern MacBook Pro (sans touchbar) is truly a great dev machine.

mattmoose21 7y ago
sans keyboard
- strikelaserclaw 7y ago
  The butterfly keyboard is a pain to type anything long on, my x1 carbon work laptop's keyboard feels so much better.
soperj 7y ago
Thinkpads have much nicer keyboards. I also never use the trackpad for anything, and turn it off immediately. I guess don't conflate what is good for you, as good for everyone.
ThrowawayR2 7y ago
Pretty much everyone touting MacBook Pros as great dev machines mentions the touchpad. As a person who doesn't like touchpads (despite having used company issued MacBook Pros these past few years), I find nothing compelling about the MacBook Pro versus other laptops as a dev machine.
llampx 7y ago
Macs are not really that great anymore. Between the keyboard, price and lack of upgradability, you have to have a pretty flexible definition of "good for developers" to choose one over even a Windows laptop with WSL, let alone a Ubuntu one.
- infecto 7y ago
  I think everyone is going to have a different opinion on this but aside from the keyboard fiasco I think Macbooks are still a good option. I agree you cannot upgrade them, but honestly all I can ever see wanting to upgrade is memory but hell, if I Just go with 16gb from the gate I cannot see the need to upgrade in the lifetime of the machine. Its a couple grand but going to last me a while. Linux laptops are still a little flaky for me. I have experienced a couple in the past year and its still not as streamlined as I want. I just don't care about configuration and fine tuning it. WSL is far from ready but I think maybe the Pro version of WSL will yield better results. I think there was still some configuration steps for me that were a little janky especially since I like to use Jetbrains editors. I think PyCharm now does a better job of supporting WSL but again, not as streamlined as I want. Not sure what kind of "developing" you are doing but Macs still work.
  - benologist 7y ago
    It's a couple grand but that used to be OK cause you could sell the machines years later and previously they held their value well. Now the free keyboard program only covers the machines for 4 years from the date of purchase, after that they're not going to be worth much. Demand for these Macbooks will probably be tied closely to the lack of alternatives too and disappear quickly.
- drclau 7y ago
  I keep seeing complaints from devs about the prices of MacBooks. One has to wonder, aren’t devs paid enough these days to not care about the extra few hundred dollars every few years?
_bxg1 7y ago
I have heard that the trackpad on the XPS 13 is the pinnacle of Windows (and presumably also Linux) trackpads. Which is to say, in the ballpark of the MacBook ones. > How tightly does the hardware integrate with the software Probably not all that well, but probably way better than on a Windows laptop with an aftermarket Linux installation at least. I really really want MacBooks to remain the go-to dev machine, but over the past few years the company has shown a distinct lack of interest in that market (aside from the Mac Pro announcement, though that's arguably a separate market). We'll see if anything changes with the rumored 16-inch MBP, but it's not surprising to me that companies like Dell are smelling blood in the water.
Apes 7y ago
Apple is no longer a product company - they haven't focused on their product quality in years. They've become a cult, and customers like you have become their true product. Here's some highlights from that list of great dev machine "features" * No ability to run kernel level debugging tools like dtruss without completely compromising the security of your machine. * Unreachable battery that requires a one week maintenance window to replace. If your battery is part of a defective batch, you have to give up your work machine for an entire week to replace the battery. * Super flaky logic board that's completely separate from the main board, with zero ability to troubleshoot or debug any issues with it. It also causes lots of unexpected issues, like the haptic feedback failing, resulting in a touchpad with no click. * Absolutely no user land documentation at all. If you need to figure out how to configure or use some piece of software, good luck looking through random message boards and blog posts. * Keycaps that wear through after a few months of heavy use. * Designed with insufficient cooling, running at near full load will cause the CPU and GPU to massively throttle to reduce heat. * Only has proprietary Thunderbolt 3 interfaces, without even a single standard interface (the headphone port doesn't count for much) * No standard USB interface type, and charges massive markup on the required adapaters to allow the use of existing devices.
- Bubbadoo 7y ago
  Fully agree, throw on top of your points a premium price tag for said flawed products and the sun has set on Apple hardware. It's not the same company Jobs ran.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > No ability to run kernel level debugging tools like dtruss without completely compromising the security of your machine. You can disable just the “debug” portion of SIP, though this is supposedly an unsupported configuration. > Absolutely no user land documentation at all. Contrary to what the internet has been abuzz about, there actually is some documentation. It’s just not very good as of late. > Only has proprietary Thunderbolt 3 interfaces, without even a single standard interface (the headphone port doesn't count for much) > No standard USB interface type, and charges massive markup on the required adapaters to allow the use of existing devices. Uh, Thunderbolt 3 is backwards compatible with USB C?
as1mov 7y ago
> Is the trackpad large Am I the only one who actually prefers smaller touchpads with physical buttons at the bottom? I've tried using Macbook's touchpad but couldn't stand it at all. Besides that, most of the devs that I know seem to rarely use the touchpad of their laptops, relying mostly on the keyboard for navigation (these are your normal IntelliJ using devs, not the Vim warriors), so the space for a larger touchpad is usually just wasted space.
h1d 7y ago
Why would devs type on the laptop keyboard for extended period of time? If you work at a desk, you're supposed to add an external monitor and a keyboard.
- Lio 7y ago
  You’re not supposed to do anything else except what you want to. I’ve typed on a laptop sitting below an external monitor for since 2006ish. I do this because I want a narrow keyboard without a numeric keypad centred below my displays. I want a touchpad directly below the keyboard so that can reach it quickly before returning to the home row. I want everything as symmetrical as possible. I touch type with a non qwerty layout so I want my keyboard to have the same feel regardless of if I’m in the office or away on business. I find heavy, long throw keys make my wrists tired so I use a very light pressure short travel much more comfortable over the long term. Eg the kind of switches you get on laptops. I have an IBM model m and a Pok3r with MX Brown switches on the for comparison and I don’t really care for either of them. Your usecases maybe different from mine. I’m fine with that.
- Jach 7y ago
  If you work at a desk, why do you need a laptop? I'm glad my employer outfits me with both a Linux workstation and a Linux laptop. One of the little fears of looking for a new job is I'll want to filter out some high percentage (like 90%?) of positions for the petty reason that they just dump a macbook pro on every dev as their sole machine. Thanks but no thanks, I can't stand any Apple hardware or software. As another comment mentioned, there is no perfect "for devs" computer. Developer tastes are too broad and disjoint.
  - h1d 7y ago
    Why? Because you can end up with a single machine than having have to constantly worry about having same environment and data and all that between multiple machines. If you plug in your laptop to an external monitor and a keyboard, you essentially get a desktop, except you can take it out there with you without worrying about leaving any data or config behind.
Lio 7y ago
In my opinion the answers are yes to most of your questions. I find the XPS13 to be a replacement for the 11” MacBook Air. It’s almost the same physical size except that you get a 13” 4K screen, a quad core processor, 16Gb RAM and 1TB of storage. The keyboard has a nice feel. The track pad works well now (IMHO) although out of the box I don’t get all the gestures that macOS has. To be honest I can live with two finger scrolling and better keyboard shortcuts than macOS. The only real issues left for me are around mixing HiDPI with 1440p external monitor, some sleep issues and Gnome clunkiness in the latest Ubuntu. Pretty sure those are fixable. Oh and Firefox could definitely make better use of the GPU.

mattmoose21 7y ago

sans keyboard

strikelaserclaw 7y ago
The butterfly keyboard is a pain to type anything long on, my x1 carbon work laptop's keyboard feels so much better.

soperj 7y ago

Thinkpads have much nicer keyboards. I also never use the trackpad for anything, and turn it off immediately. I guess don't conflate what is good for you, as good for everyone.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

Pretty much everyone touting MacBook Pros as great dev machines mentions the touchpad. As a person who doesn't like touchpads (despite having used company issued MacBook Pros these past few years), I find nothing compelling about the MacBook Pro versus other laptops as a dev machine.

llampx 7y ago

Macs are not really that great anymore. Between the keyboard, price and lack of upgradability, you have to have a pretty flexible definition of "good for developers" to choose one over even a Windows laptop with WSL, let alone a Ubuntu one.

infecto 7y ago
I think everyone is going to have a different opinion on this but aside from the keyboard fiasco I think Macbooks are still a good option. I agree you cannot upgrade them, but honestly all I can ever see wanting to upgrade is memory but hell, if I Just go with 16gb from the gate I cannot see the need to upgrade in the lifetime of the machine. Its a couple grand but going to last me a while. Linux laptops are still a little flaky for me. I have experienced a couple in the past year and its still not as streamlined as I want. I just don't care about configuration and fine tuning it. WSL is far from ready but I think maybe the Pro version of WSL will yield better results. I think there was still some configuration steps for me that were a little janky especially since I like to use Jetbrains editors. I think PyCharm now does a better job of supporting WSL but again, not as streamlined as I want. Not sure what kind of "developing" you are doing but Macs still work.
- benologist 7y ago
  It's a couple grand but that used to be OK cause you could sell the machines years later and previously they held their value well. Now the free keyboard program only covers the machines for 4 years from the date of purchase, after that they're not going to be worth much. Demand for these Macbooks will probably be tied closely to the lack of alternatives too and disappear quickly.
drclau 7y ago
I keep seeing complaints from devs about the prices of MacBooks. One has to wonder, aren’t devs paid enough these days to not care about the extra few hundred dollars every few years?

_bxg1 7y ago

I have heard that the trackpad on the XPS 13 is the pinnacle of Windows (and presumably also Linux) trackpads. Which is to say, in the ballpark of the MacBook ones. > How tightly does the hardware integrate with the software Probably not all that well, but probably way better than on a Windows laptop with an aftermarket Linux installation at least. I really really want MacBooks to remain the go-to dev machine, but over the past few years the company has shown a distinct lack of interest in that market (aside from the Mac Pro announcement, though that's arguably a separate market). We'll see if anything changes with the rumored 16-inch MBP, but it's not surprising to me that companies like Dell are smelling blood in the water.

Apes 7y ago

Apple is no longer a product company - they haven't focused on their product quality in years. They've become a cult, and customers like you have become their true product. Here's some highlights from that list of great dev machine "features" * No ability to run kernel level debugging tools like dtruss without completely compromising the security of your machine. * Unreachable battery that requires a one week maintenance window to replace. If your battery is part of a defective batch, you have to give up your work machine for an entire week to replace the battery. * Super flaky logic board that's completely separate from the main board, with zero ability to troubleshoot or debug any issues with it. It also causes lots of unexpected issues, like the haptic feedback failing, resulting in a touchpad with no click. * Absolutely no user land documentation at all. If you need to figure out how to configure or use some piece of software, good luck looking through random message boards and blog posts. * Keycaps that wear through after a few months of heavy use. * Designed with insufficient cooling, running at near full load will cause the CPU and GPU to massively throttle to reduce heat. * Only has proprietary Thunderbolt 3 interfaces, without even a single standard interface (the headphone port doesn't count for much) * No standard USB interface type, and charges massive markup on the required adapaters to allow the use of existing devices.

Bubbadoo 7y ago
Fully agree, throw on top of your points a premium price tag for said flawed products and the sun has set on Apple hardware. It's not the same company Jobs ran.
saagarjha 7y ago
> No ability to run kernel level debugging tools like dtruss without completely compromising the security of your machine. You can disable just the “debug” portion of SIP, though this is supposedly an unsupported configuration. > Absolutely no user land documentation at all. Contrary to what the internet has been abuzz about, there actually is some documentation. It’s just not very good as of late. > Only has proprietary Thunderbolt 3 interfaces, without even a single standard interface (the headphone port doesn't count for much) > No standard USB interface type, and charges massive markup on the required adapaters to allow the use of existing devices. Uh, Thunderbolt 3 is backwards compatible with USB C?

as1mov 7y ago

> Is the trackpad large Am I the only one who actually prefers smaller touchpads with physical buttons at the bottom? I've tried using Macbook's touchpad but couldn't stand it at all. Besides that, most of the devs that I know seem to rarely use the touchpad of their laptops, relying mostly on the keyboard for navigation (these are your normal IntelliJ using devs, not the Vim warriors), so the space for a larger touchpad is usually just wasted space.

h1d 7y ago

Why would devs type on the laptop keyboard for extended period of time? If you work at a desk, you're supposed to add an external monitor and a keyboard.

Lio 7y ago
You’re not supposed to do anything else except what you want to. I’ve typed on a laptop sitting below an external monitor for since 2006ish. I do this because I want a narrow keyboard without a numeric keypad centred below my displays. I want a touchpad directly below the keyboard so that can reach it quickly before returning to the home row. I want everything as symmetrical as possible. I touch type with a non qwerty layout so I want my keyboard to have the same feel regardless of if I’m in the office or away on business. I find heavy, long throw keys make my wrists tired so I use a very light pressure short travel much more comfortable over the long term. Eg the kind of switches you get on laptops. I have an IBM model m and a Pok3r with MX Brown switches on the for comparison and I don’t really care for either of them. Your usecases maybe different from mine. I’m fine with that.
Jach 7y ago
If you work at a desk, why do you need a laptop? I'm glad my employer outfits me with both a Linux workstation and a Linux laptop. One of the little fears of looking for a new job is I'll want to filter out some high percentage (like 90%?) of positions for the petty reason that they just dump a macbook pro on every dev as their sole machine. Thanks but no thanks, I can't stand any Apple hardware or software. As another comment mentioned, there is no perfect "for devs" computer. Developer tastes are too broad and disjoint.
- h1d 7y ago
  Why? Because you can end up with a single machine than having have to constantly worry about having same environment and data and all that between multiple machines. If you plug in your laptop to an external monitor and a keyboard, you essentially get a desktop, except you can take it out there with you without worrying about leaving any data or config behind.

Lio 7y ago

In my opinion the answers are yes to most of your questions. I find the XPS13 to be a replacement for the 11” MacBook Air. It’s almost the same physical size except that you get a 13” 4K screen, a quad core processor, 16Gb RAM and 1TB of storage. The keyboard has a nice feel. The track pad works well now (IMHO) although out of the box I don’t get all the gestures that macOS has. To be honest I can live with two finger scrolling and better keyboard shortcuts than macOS. The only real issues left for me are around mixing HiDPI with 1440p external monitor, some sleep issues and Gnome clunkiness in the latest Ubuntu. Pretty sure those are fixable. Oh and Firefox could definitely make better use of the GPU.