5 ms·

I just don't understand this attempts to use shitty and cheap piece of hardware to do development. You are not coding for food, right? Why bother yourself tryin

by vittore 13y ago

I just don't understand this attempts to use shitty and cheap piece of hardware to do development. You are not coding for food, right? Why bother yourself trying to use something that will make you so counterproductive? Need powerful something - get desktop. Need something slim and sexy - get f* macbookair Need both - get pro Need internet connection on the go - get nexus if you use tablet. Oh don't need it -use tetering on your phone. It is expensive - get Clear device Yes, it will need more money than shitty chromebook, but you are making money with it, so it's worth _investing_ in your everyday companion a little. What I'm missing?

ineedtosleep 13y ago
What boggles my mind is that articles where people code X that does Y where Y is completely "useless" to 90%+ of the population get all the touchy feelies from HN, but when it comes to something laptop/netbook/desktop/cheap workstation related, it turns into a slamfest like this and the current top comment. Why is that? What are /you/ missing? You're missing that he got a piece of hardware that's relatively closed down and made it useful him. Yes, none of that revolves around you, so tough luck. The end.
dirkgently 13y ago
What you are missing is that he is not an apple fanboi.
psn 13y ago
First thing you might be missing: there are probably a pile of folks on hacker news who don't have money. Students. People who have invested their life savings in their startup. People who work part time and see the world in the rest of their time. People who are spending their money on making sure their mum gets treatment for cancer. For these folks, getting the most out of the kit they can afford is important. And yes, thats a condescending statement aimed at you, but its not more condescending than "why don't you drop a couple grand on this problem?" Second thing you might be missing: computers have marched forward in spec, yet most of us don't need tons of power in any dimension of the spec. My cheap chromebook ($200 or so) has 2G of ram. I went though uni with about of order of magnitude less ram, and was happy. The 16G ssd it ships with is sufficient for anything that isn't movies, music or photos. The ssd probably has more iops than 2005 era hard drives :). So the chromebook is low powered compared to the desktops of today, but its pretty powerful compared, to, for example, the computers google or facebook used to get off the ground. Third thing: cloud compute. If I find myself needing thousands of hours of cpu time, I can get that on EC2 or similar. And its cheaper for everyone to rent cpu time when needed on a server in a well cooled warehouse somewhere where power is cheap, rather than have idle cpus connected up to city power grids. I own a cheap chromebook (and I'm amused by you saying cheap in a negative way :)), and its fine for what it is. Its slim. Its not as sexy* as your mother, but hey. It has a debian chroot with all the normal tools on it. I don't worry about it being damaged or lost as much as I would if it was 5x as expensive. If I spent the money on a macbook air, I'd be buying a machine to run chrome and a terminal window, and all I'd be getting for my extra 800 dollars would be a nicer screen and track pad. * I do wonder about people who describe computers as sexy.
fishtoaster 13y ago
My use-case is as a supplement to a heavier machine for travel. I love my 15" macbook pro, but I got tired of lugging it around Nepal, and I was always worried about it getting stolen or damaged. I'd love to split my two computing needs: - 1 machine that's heavy and does everything. Maybe a desktop; maybe a 17" laptop that I only move between work and home. - 1 machine that's light, disposable, and does 90% of what I need to do. It fits in a traveller's backpack and I'm not heartbroken if it gets destroyed. Right now I try to meet those needs somewhere in the middle with a medium-weight macbook pro, but it's definitely a compromise. I'd love to have both worlds.
llgrrl_ 13y ago
I need my balls not to be cooked by the power-hungry processors. I need a light shit because I walk with my backpack a lot. I need the key layout on the keyboard not a pain in the ass. I need my palm to be like little Fonzie. What Fonzie like? It's cool. I need standard linux, because I don't care enough to learn about all the quirks of Apple. I need to have a thing that is light, 3G-capable, has good key layout, cool, and I forget to mention, I'm cheap too. So ask me why do I need to spend 5 times as much for your Macbook again?
- workbench 13y ago
  To be fair a Macbook is going to support Linux much better and longer term than the Chromebook. Seen as it's an actual computer and all not a locked down Google product that needs to be rooted to install an OS in the first place.
  - llgrrl_ 13y ago
    Last time I tried installing Linux (/Ubuntu) on a Macbook it was a balls cooking experience with the combination of NVidia and Intel. Pure intel HD might be better, but why do I want to solve those problems in the first place?

by vittore 13y ago

ineedtosleep 13y ago

What boggles my mind is that articles where people code X that does Y where Y is completely "useless" to 90%+ of the population get all the touchy feelies from HN, but when it comes to something laptop/netbook/desktop/cheap workstation related, it turns into a slamfest like this and the current top comment. Why is that? What are /you/ missing? You're missing that he got a piece of hardware that's relatively closed down and made it useful him. Yes, none of that revolves around you, so tough luck. The end.

dirkgently 13y ago

What you are missing is that he is not an apple fanboi.

psn 13y ago

First thing you might be missing: there are probably a pile of folks on hacker news who don't have money. Students. People who have invested their life savings in their startup. People who work part time and see the world in the rest of their time. People who are spending their money on making sure their mum gets treatment for cancer. For these folks, getting the most out of the kit they can afford is important. And yes, thats a condescending statement aimed at you, but its not more condescending than "why don't you drop a couple grand on this problem?" Second thing you might be missing: computers have marched forward in spec, yet most of us don't need tons of power in any dimension of the spec. My cheap chromebook ($200 or so) has 2G of ram. I went though uni with about of order of magnitude less ram, and was happy. The 16G ssd it ships with is sufficient for anything that isn't movies, music or photos. The ssd probably has more iops than 2005 era hard drives :). So the chromebook is low powered compared to the desktops of today, but its pretty powerful compared, to, for example, the computers google or facebook used to get off the ground. Third thing: cloud compute. If I find myself needing thousands of hours of cpu time, I can get that on EC2 or similar. And its cheaper for everyone to rent cpu time when needed on a server in a well cooled warehouse somewhere where power is cheap, rather than have idle cpus connected up to city power grids. I own a cheap chromebook (and I'm amused by you saying cheap in a negative way :)), and its fine for what it is. Its slim. Its not as sexy* as your mother, but hey. It has a debian chroot with all the normal tools on it. I don't worry about it being damaged or lost as much as I would if it was 5x as expensive. If I spent the money on a macbook air, I'd be buying a machine to run chrome and a terminal window, and all I'd be getting for my extra 800 dollars would be a nicer screen and track pad. * I do wonder about people who describe computers as sexy.

fishtoaster 13y ago

My use-case is as a supplement to a heavier machine for travel. I love my 15" macbook pro, but I got tired of lugging it around Nepal, and I was always worried about it getting stolen or damaged. I'd love to split my two computing needs: - 1 machine that's heavy and does everything. Maybe a desktop; maybe a 17" laptop that I only move between work and home. - 1 machine that's light, disposable, and does 90% of what I need to do. It fits in a traveller's backpack and I'm not heartbroken if it gets destroyed. Right now I try to meet those needs somewhere in the middle with a medium-weight macbook pro, but it's definitely a compromise. I'd love to have both worlds.

llgrrl_ 13y ago

I need my balls not to be cooked by the power-hungry processors. I need a light shit because I walk with my backpack a lot. I need the key layout on the keyboard not a pain in the ass. I need my palm to be like little Fonzie. What Fonzie like? It's cool. I need standard linux, because I don't care enough to learn about all the quirks of Apple. I need to have a thing that is light, 3G-capable, has good key layout, cool, and I forget to mention, I'm cheap too. So ask me why do I need to spend 5 times as much for your Macbook again?

workbench 13y ago
To be fair a Macbook is going to support Linux much better and longer term than the Chromebook. Seen as it's an actual computer and all not a locked down Google product that needs to be rooted to install an OS in the first place.
- llgrrl_ 13y ago
  Last time I tried installing Linux (/Ubuntu) on a Macbook it was a balls cooking experience with the combination of NVidia and Intel. Pure intel HD might be better, but why do I want to solve those problems in the first place?