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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

> Obviously there's a very large target market of folks that just want their tech to work and will happily drop a few hundred bucks each time they need to upgrade or repair. But it's hard to go back once you've opened up your computer and seen how cheap/easy it is to replace some of these extremely modular components. I imagine my mindset will change as I get older and have less time/more disposable income.

There is. I'm 33, and do devops/infrastructure. I just want my rig to work. Macbook Air maxed out on ram and disk. To me, its disposable every three years (comes out to be ~$60/month).

Apple is going to have to get pretty bad before I throw away the experience of walking into an Apple store, buying a new laptop, restoring from TimeMachine, and being up and running almost immediately.

As you mention, disposable income and a lack of time changes the equation.

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Full stack developer here on Windows, not everything maxed out.

Payed 550€ for my laptop ( 8 gb, ..) 2 years ago, everything is still working fine and it's still enough ( Visual Studio is supposed to be a "heavy" program). = 23 € / month till now and still dropping... And it's hardly game over with my laptop. When i'm at 3 years, it will cost me about 15,2 € / month.

I'll probably use it for longer. But let's say i don't have any costs and sell the laptop for 150 €, that makes it 11,2 € / month.

PS. No repairs required untill date

Edit: You can install Linux on it too or dualboot it ( i did this a long time, but didn't feel the need for it now)

Can you run Docker on Windows yet? We're a Docker/Python/Go stack.

I can on my Raspberry Pi 2, but Docker should run: https://docs.docker.com/engine/installation/windows/

Edit:. The Pi is just for experimenting, no GUI required ;)

You can run it in a virtual box VM and ssh in. Works fine, at least as long as you have lots of RAM & a fast HDD. It does suck battery though.

About as well as on Mac OS X.

Docker is Linux-only :)

There are tools like docker-machine facilitate running Docker under Linux VMs non-Linux platforms though.

That's great if you're a Windows developer. If you aren't then congratulations your performance is cripped as you have to run everything inside a Linux VM. There are just too many open source projects that stupidly hard core path seperators or rely on UNIX binaries.

Microsoft would really do well supporting a truly great UNIX layer.

> There are just too many open source projects that stupidly hard core path seperators or rely on UNIX binaries.

I wouldn't say stupidly. Open source projects just don't prioritize Windows development.

You have some point there, but a lot seems to work fine. The hardest problem i had was with a x64 binary for SQLLite ( Ruby On Rails), which i couldn't fix. Cygwin would be a recommender for anyone using Windows and programming languages other then .Net.

And once you know how the C++ compilation works with VC++, the problems are minimized. ( i mostly come this accross with Python)

It isn't a hassle free road though

I recently bought a Thinkpad to try if another platform would work. I first ran Windows 10 and found it unworkable and then installed Ubuntu, did some battery tweaking. It is great; have not touched my Mac since. Especially long battery life, swappable batteries and, for my taste, a better keyboard next to more ports is just better over all for my (full stack) dev.

How did you get great battery life from Ubuntu? I've never been able to get anything close to the runtime I get on OSX. In my experience, OSX gives me the longest batter life, second is Windows and any flavor of Linux is terrible (maybe 3-4 hours on a machine that Windows gives 5-6 hours).

I get 16 hours under my Lenovo with ubuntu with tlp default settings. I have to be careful a bit with browsers (they use most in my workflow) but usually I just use lynx for programming searches. OS X on my MBP is ghastly: Apple replaced the battery and I use the same software as under Ubuntu but I struggle to get 3 hrs. On my Air it was wonderful. Windows I have not used for anything serious in 20 years.

This is why most of my *nix work is done on my server at home (since I work from home). PyCharm pretty handily supports remote Python installations, so I can just use my work-supplied Windows laptop to type the code and have it run on a VM in the other room (or across the country if they insisted I use one in the datacenter).

True you need a VM but performance doesn't have to be crippled. My out of office/at home machine is a Dell Inspiron 5558 (Core i7, 16GB RAM). I stuck an intel 256GB SSD in it, took the free upgrade to Windows 10 and do all my dev work in a few Virtualbox VMs (leaning heavily on mRemoteNG for lots of tabbed PuTTy instances!).

Total cost (including the Intel SSD) was £726 or $1049 at today's rate (exc. VAT). So didn't cost a bomb and gives me a lightening fast machine, windows for desktop duties, debian for dev, a 1920x1080 display, easily replaceable battery/ram/disk and no issue driving multiple monitors.

I also think Windows + Putty is better than Desktop Linux. I'm actually going to sell the Mac (can't get used to shortcuts, don't have money to an upgrade here in Brazil) and buy a Windows PC + Intel NUC for HTPC + Linux box.

> projects that stupidly hard core path seperators

It's also stupid to assume that your application will work seamlessly between Windows and Unix-like systems just by making sure that the path separators are OS-agnostic.

Most of the windows APIs support unix-style path separators, I actually get annoyed when I see separator injection needlessly... the bigger differences are default system paths and environment variables as such. (Also, windows-style "drive" letters" of course).

I'm 27 and just want my rig to work. That's why I build my own PC, demand mobile phones with replaceable batteries, and have a great 6 year old Lenovo laptop that, besides a slow-ish CPU, is spec'ed pretty well for 2016.

Different strokes. I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem. That saves me time for my wife or my hobbies.

Trade money for things that save you time, to spend that time on what's important to you (if you've got the money).

> I've got better things to do with my time. I'd rather walk into the Apple store and replace my MBA or my iPhone when I've got a problem.

I don't get the comparison.

It's like apple users think the only options are buy apple (expensive, but "allegedly" rarely needs fixing, works 99% of the time, lasts a long time, etc) and a PC ("allegedly" breaks all the time, requires more maintenance, requires more time to keep up with, "cheap", etc...)

Those are not the options -- it's a false premise. There are laptop PCs which have the exact same performance & reliability as apple, but for a fraction of the price. I've gone through 4 PC laptops since 1996. My first 2 laptops, I admit, I spent a lot of time repairing but that was due to my own youthful tinkering, experimenting and the general instability of earlier OSs (DOS, Win95, Win98/ME, etc).

But my last 2 have lasted me 7+ years a piece. And I only decided to upgrade because they were beginning to show their age (slower compared to newer stuff). You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty.

> You can buy PC laptops with the same "just works" fidelity as apple. More options open up, and you can save yourself a fortune, if people would just eschew their brand loyalty.

What do you consider a fortune? $1000? $1400? That's about two days of my time consulting. I'm fine paying the premium for what I consider a better experience. It's not brand loyalty, that's for sure. I've had a terrible, terrible time trying to get work done on Windows 7, Windows 10 looks like a train wreck, and there are no Lenovo stores I can walk into same day and get a replacement like I can with an Apple store (which is in every major metro I visit).

Build a better experience, and I will gladly pay for it. Until then, Apple (grudgingly) gets my dollars.

I've had a lot of PC and Mac laptops, my first one being a Powerbook around 1994. But the --only one-- that ever died catastrophically was an Early 2011 Macbook Pro. Its problems are legion on the Apple support boards, and Apple wouldn't admit that the problems existed.

It wasn't until after I bought a new replacement laptop that Apple finally acknowledged the issues and started a repair program. I wasn't able to just walk into my Apple store to get it fixed (I live in a major metro), so I ended up going to a local authorized dealer instead.

It was basically the last straw for me. I'm happily on Windows. I don't miss the OSX Terminal because I've got CMDer, and just about everything else I was using on Mac for work is either available for Windows or has a decent equivalent. Windows is not the wasteland it was when I switched back to Mac a decade ago.

> $1000? $1400? That's about two days of my time consulting.

On my home country people get paid 1000 euros a month!

Using non-apple hardware and software does not take more time, nor does it incur more frustration. It generally does cost less money for the same level of performance. It often lasts longer than the apple-branded alternative as well due to the relative ease of repair and upgrade where the apple-branded alternative would have to be replaced.

This saves me time for my wife, my children and my hobbies. It also saves me money. Time, and money, to spend on what's important to me. It also sends a signal to companies: there is a market for upgradable, repairable hardware.

Unfortunately, upgradability is the niche use-case. Most everyone that I have ever known after a couple years of owning a computer, when faced with upgrading or replacing, they almost always choose replacement.

Because of the depreciation curve, a $500 computer is almost worthless after several years while a $1000 computer might be worth a hundred or two hundred dollars. Do you spend $200-300 on your $500 computer for say memory + SSD or put that $200-300 towards a new $1000 computer?

As far as time is considered, engineered solutions are generally read-to-go, Apple or Windows, but the Windows world still seems to be rife with bloat. Navigating the hundreds of models & manufacturers is overwhelming for the non-technical user. For many technical folks, it's much simpler to just say, 'Get a mac' or 'Get a Dell', nut the Dell option will be a small pain with navigating the choices.

Non-engineered solutions (building your own) do cost a little bit of a time investment in research, assembly and tweaking. For the technical folk here, it's merely a couple of extra hours. For the uninitiated, it's a lot of hours for knowledge that may not be readily applicable to them on a day-to-day basis.

> It also sends a signal to companies: there is a market for upgradable, repairable hardware.

I absolutely guarantee you that there simply are not enough of you to make hardware manufacturers cater to the upgradable/repairable market.

The only way upgradability/reparability will continue is if people like yourself form a non-profit or B Corp that makes open hardware that allows for it. The vast majority of people don't care.

> (comes out to be ~$60/month)

Even phased like that that is a lot of money.

Not for a tool contributing towards six figures of income for me annually. That's an insane ROI.

EDIT: I know people who spend more than that on Starbucks each month.

Just about everything starts to look cheap when you stack it up next to a daily Starbucks habit...

That's not a realistic comparison... My acculated sum of every webapplication i use is (outside of my business ofc):

- 9 € / month ( Google Play Music)

- 3 € / month ( Netflix shared with 3 other people)

- 3€ / month for Google Apps ( actually, this is business... But i also use the mail for private use..)

= 15 € / month.

If i'm not mistaking, you're OS X device costs you 4 times more every month then the sum of every online webservice i use.

( this is another comparison than yours.. Some people just throw out money, others don't :) . Earning a lot of money doesn't automaticly mean you have to waste all of it )

>If i'm not mistaking, you're OS X device costs you 4 times more every month then the sum of every online webservice i use.

Well.. you need something to run those things on

Well, my laptop costs 11,5 €/ month on the end of life ( cfr. other post) and i pay my ISP 25 € / month. So i still have less to pay with the sum of my webservices / laptop and ISP together then his 'power horse' :)

Is that any better? ;)

No. Your last line completely invalidated any point you might have had.

Actually, it makes me realize how little money it is. I pay about that much for home internet access, and about that much for a cell phone plan.

It turns out I spend far more on internet access than I do on hardware, and I wouldn't have thought that to be the case.

And I don't even get that much value out of my home internet access, since I'm at work the majority of the day and anything I absolutely need >50mbps for is already on my local network (Steam streaming, for example). Still, I'd feel even more ripped off paying for 50% of the speed at 80% of the price. Or 10% of the speed at 60% of the price.

Is it? As a software engineer, I leverage those $60/month into $8000+/month.

I think that's more than worth it. Why the hell haven't I bought a backup machine yet just in case this one breaks?

> I think that's more than worth it. Why the hell haven't I bought a backup machine yet just in case this one breaks?

Because you're leveraging credit in the event of a failure! No need to let equipment languish when you can simply pop into the store!

Hehe, that's why I don't have a replacement machine yet.

Also because it has so far only died about once every two years. Every time due to human error (spilled things). I can afford a two day outage every two years :)

I would try to save some of that 8k+/month. I hope things stay good.

It's unlikely that you'd have to buy a new laptop every month though.

Then again, it's cheaper than a month of rent for a 1-bedroom in this damn city (San Francisco).

Christ, you earn 3x / month what I do. What have I done wrong?

Don't worry, I spend half of it on rent.

And mind you that just two years ago, I had the same kind of reaction to that sort of comment. It's not that hard to step up a few pay grades as an engineer these days.

Specialize in something (pick 2/3) new, hot, or rare. Be willing to move. Apply to lots of jobs. Ask for quadruple whatever you think you're worth. Chances are, something will pan out.

And you couldn't possibly do that on a Linux / Windows laptop?

It's irrelevant. A top of the line laptop that's reliable costs about $3k regardless of manufacturer. At least last time I checked.

And no, not on Windows because in my experience it's the most terrible system for developers. Might've improved in the last 15 years.

And no, not on linux. In my experience it requires constant tinkering with the system. According to my friends still on linux, this hasn't changed in the last 3 years.

So yeah, I guess only mac is left. Which often still requires too much tinkering, but feels like less than linux. And I honestly haven't used windows in earnest in 15 years so hard to say.

Rubbish. It make take a little more tweaking to get set up, but once its done it Linux distros don't require constant tinkering these days.

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