Frustrations with my MacBook Pro are leading me to re-evaluate my machine strategy. I've been hung up on this since before I bought this computer, but my experiences have sealed the deal. What are those frustrating experiences you might ask? Basically everything. And I just don't see any laptop computers on the market that make me want to stick with this form-factor even if I simply ditched the Apple ecosystem. Mobile computing has progressed to the point where I feel adequately plugged in on the go. But ideally, I'm unplugged when I'm not at my workstation anyway.
My current workflow is that I carry my MacBook around and then plug in when I need it. The process of plugging in is itself chaotic and annoying with my various cords (and dongles!!).
I've enjoyed the convenience of one machine so everything is configured and installed as I need it, but a more cloud-centric workflow is perfectly reasonable. I look forward to finding ways to keep things in sync.
I'm no longer a fan of "working from coffee shops". It was fun for a while, but I now find it frustrating. This is likely because I lead a team and workflow disruptions just make the whole process worse.
I work both from the office and at home, which is why I have gone with the laptop, but I look forward to having two distinct physical machines and not having to carry the laptop around!
I am excited about the change. I'll keep a lower-powered laptop around here and there, and maybe see where the tablet computing scene is going in terms of secondary machines. I'm rarely all that productive with my coding work when I'm away at conferences or something, so I don't really need the primary laptop for anything. I am still not sure whether I want to go MacOS, Linux or Windows.
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I'm happy to hear other suggestions 😄
For any secondary laptop-type machine I'd expand to Google's offerings etc. but I'm not even aware of anything outside Mac/Linux/Windows ecosystems in terms of something I'd reasonably work with. I've heard of things like Redox, but hadn't considered alternatives. Now that you mention it, I kind of want to.
Secretly I would love to build a DEV-OS, which would basically be a developer-centric OS that natively hooks into your DEV profile for interacting more richly with this community. But that's another discussion altogether.
Do you have any OS suggestions I might want to check out?
I would love this, mannn.. let's get started! DEV os!
I started to use fedora this week, and i`m enjoying it so far! I was using Debian based (ubuntu), but i felt that fedora is better to install new programs and the user interface is better than ubuntu
try HaikuOS (slightly Joking) it's ancestor BeOS was hands-down the best OS of it's time. I was gutted when Be Inc failed. It was clean, fast, had lots of software and a really healthy community. I'm gutted my C++ is not good enough to have written anything amazing for it.
Downsides are FF and Chrome support, virtualisation, probably a heap of non-core development environments and tools.
Which one?!
I have used a home desktop (gaming and dev) and work desktop for a while now, and I much prefer it to the overhead of plugging and unplugging things every day. Especially when I think about those couple of times I forgot to bring my laptop in to work.
Another alternative to two desktops is a home desktop, and leaving your work laptop plugged in all the time like a desktop machine at work. That way there isn't a lot to mess with day-to-day, but you can still take it on trips. Most places I've worked have badged or keypad access so the risk of theft is lower. (Laptops being a little more stealable than desktops.) Leaving a computer at work instead of taking it with you everywhere might necessitate a change in security habits. For example, locking your computer every time you leave your desk, even for a short break. I'm sure you trust everyone on the team, but sometimes a break can turn into leaving for the day, and you don't want your computer to stay unlocked overnight when no trusted person is watching.
Update: Syncing. I don't sync my settings between the two. But I try to keep my workspace simple so there is not much work to repeat between the two.
I have completely opposite view on this - when working from home office I prefer the desk and big monitors, but I also need option to "bugger off downstairs" if little one can't stop coming up with crazy very important reason to come see daddy.
Not having to set up two machines the same way, and keep them synced up sounded like hassle, so in the end when desktop got too ancient, I just opted with laptop.
Also, working in busy coffee shop sounds like hell to me :D
Just so happens I'm trying to get a MacBook Pro for some side gig stuff for non-profit civic hacking and the like.
Looking to sell on the cheap? ;)
I look forward to reading follow-ups on how this goes for you though.
Isn't it interesting how we move away from desktops because "the office should travel with you" towards laptops and now we're getting back into static environments?
I always find it fascinating when we go back to classic working themes as the technology ebbs and flows. Personally, I have a work laptop (which I take home out of habit), which I leave in a bag and never touch.
For my personal projects like Jelly Fin, I primarily used my iMac, but later wanted the freedom of working from my bed while watching a show, so I started using my old MacBook again. I was reminded of the pains of setting up a developer environment from scratch.
I know there are cloud IDE solutions out there, but none have really caught my eye. I like my setup the way I like it. I don't want someone else's interpretation of it.
As far as OS goes, Windows (if I'm desperate or if that's the only option given my employment), MacOS preferred (because it's a beautiful Linux), and definitely Linux. Linux Mint is my favorite distro. I learned on Debian and Ubuntu, so I really like those based systems. Linux Mint is just clean and easy to use. Highly enjoyable.
This would be a great separate #devdiscuss topic. What is your developer setup? What do you use? Hardware setups mostly, then branching to IDEs and whether you're cloud-based or not.
Didn't we have a survey about that?
So, I have a Samsung Galaxy S9+ and apparently, there's a device called a DeX where you can use your phone and hook up a monitor to it and use it as a computer. Can you imagine using your phone as a Linux development environment?
apparently it is not possible to use a phone as a dev-pc in any productive way, except u are using some sort of webIDE stuff that u can use with ur normal webbrowser. I tried so many possible solutions an it ended up buying me a s120 lenovo supercheap laptop. I know that it is possible to deploy linux on android. But what youre actually doing is, u run it in a container and then connect through VNC to your own device. and in the background is android still running. That is much to slow for a real workflow.
This is only useful for portable penetration testing.
greetings.
I'm not sure why you would use your phone to develop on it... Just to make the battery last 20 minutes :D ?
For me as a Student it was quiete a good idea to keep always a capable device around you. I got a great Android tablet and I wanted to use it for sitting in a cafe or sth... But aparently it is not really possible anyways :D
I have a touch bar era MacBook Pro at work that is almost always "docked" (all dongles plugged in), and an early 2015 MacBook Pro at home that's almost always docked (as in I actually bought an expensive third-party dock for it).
What I really have been liking lately, though, is my ASUS Flip Chromebook, since Chrome Remote Desktop allows me to remote into my home laptop at work, or I can just have Chrome up to do internet searches as an external monitor of sorts, or I can have it doing Spotify while I work.
Even with Termux, I can't picture ever using an Android/Chrome device as a primary solution, but it's an awesome supplement.
Wow! I started thinking that I'm the only developer without a laptop :)
I can only think of a small handful of situations where not having a laptop proved to be an inconvenience, but it was never more than an inconvenience.
I've been thinking about this too, but haven't got the chance to test it. I think the best option could be to have a bare metal system in a colocation data center like hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/e... and just ssh into it to make work, your client can be anything from a tablet or a really small computer like a raspberry pi.
The only downside is that you need to be online all the time. No way to work offline.
I have to say I really like my Lenovo Yoga X1. I dont need adapters or dongles as I have plenty of plugs. I also have a touch screen and a pen which is amazing for scribbling/reading. I dont have to use any syncing software (had really bad experiences with that). I have a Thunderbolt docking station at home, so I just plug in one cable and have 2 monitors, audio, usb hub and more to work productively.
In my opinion most of the gripes are just caused by Macbooks being shitty laptops. I also wouldnt want from Coffee Shops, but having only one development machine is so much easier. I do have a desktop, but I only use that one for gaming.
For OS I would go with Arch Linux. I had a lot of issues with Ubuntu because of outdated software in the official repos. I had less issues with packages on Arch.
Considering that Arch in itself might require a lot of manual installations (of course, depending on what you're working with) I'd suggest Fedora instead. I've never ran into any sort of outdated software and the OS itself has never stopped me from doing any sort of work (something that happened with Ubuntu and also the Arch-based distro Manjaro).
This is why I love and use Antergos. It's basically an installer for Arch. I have a Dell 2in1 and it worked perfectly out of the box after installing antergos. Even the touchscreen and pen.
*Antergos I think
Whoops. Typo corrected. Thanks.