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Comment by feross | Hacker News Reader

"If you want to write fast software, use a slow computer" - Dominic Tarr

The 12" Macbook is the best computer I've ever owned. Switched to it from a 2014 Macbook Pro, and found it very easy to adjust. The only time it struggles a little bit is when I run Windows in VMware, on occasion.

The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-smooth on other computers, which all have beefier CPUs and GPUs.

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By that logic, every developer should be handed out 486s, right?

There are too many things during development that doesn't happen on consumer's computer like compile, fast intellisense, real-time syntax check, multiple instances of IDEs and so on. Developers should have best performing machines money can buy because developer time is expensive and development should happen at speed of thought. Testing should be done in VM that can emulate average consumer hardware. Just because some developers are not good t following performance hygiene, every one shouldn't be working on weak machine to produce performant software.

But if we just forced web developers to use 486s with 32mbs of ram, imagine how fast the internet would become. No more linking to 15mbs of Javascript, CSS, and Web Fonts.

The mobile web would be amazing.

It's a good quote, but I feel it reflects a time when I didn't also need to run a stack of Redis, RabbitMQ, Postgres and webserver apps on my development box.

I run literally all of that, and a couple of virtual machines on my 2016 rMB. It works fine.

Sure, I can't play Doom 4. But if I need extra cycles for my development work, I spin up an ec2 instance.

As long as the data-sets are test-sized and you're not simulating thousands of simultaneous users, that stuff should be no problem even for very modest computers.

The performance issues come when you're running each of those in it's own virtual machine, and all the overhead and tooling that comes with that.

We run Gitlab (Rails + Unicorn + Sidekiq + Nginx + Postgres + Redis) on a 3GB single-core VPS and it runs fine, without needing the swap. Is the stack really the problem?

Isn't that hugely dependent on the use-case? If you're working with significant volumes of data - which makes sense even in testing to validate that your application actually behaves sanely with data volumes approach real-world scenario - you might not have a lot of fun with 3GB. And optimizing for great on-disk performance during local development doesn't have much benefit if your production workload is all memory.

How many users on your Gitlab? I've had to add 2GB of ram every 3-6 months to my Gitlab server. We're at about 17 users and 300 projects right now. I think it's on a 4vcpu box right now.

8 users, 850 projects, 6GB+ of Git data.

It runs fine, but why not have, it runs "awesome" :)

Why local and not cloud/vps?

Why bother with a "pro" device at all, just get a chromebook and call it a day. Except there's a ton of premium stuff you can do more easily locally, and it's all stuff that hasn't been productized down to cheap web-office quality standards

Many of us have done just that...

"The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-smooth on other computers, which all have beefier CPUs and GPUs."

Really? Apple really has a great business model.

The software I'm developing is not the compiler I'm using. It's not a mobile device emulator I'm using. It's not a web browser I'm using. It's not an email client or a photo editing app I'm using. It's not the IDE I'm using.

I used to work at a place that tested their apps on a ~7 year old computer with a <1Mbps dsl line. It was awesome. They knew how to makes stuff load fast and efficiently.

I hate that I have to tell devs this, but: Yes, your data-hungry app may work well in downtown SF, but try using it in a place like nowheresville, TN, and let me know how well it works out. /me glares at google maps

Always seems rather silly. By all means, test everything on a slow computer. Make sure that it runs smooth, even on older computers. But there's no reason to make your developers wait through unnecessarily long compile times before testing.

Not all developers have long compile times. If you're doing database work a slow computer on an HDD is a great way to notice performance problems early.

> The biggest benefit of the Macbook 12" is that if software runs well on your computer, you know it's guaranteed to run extra buttery-smooth on other computers, which all have beefier CPUs and GPUs.

Except for all the other computers that don’t in the $150 price range. Use one of those for development.

I want my development environment as fast as possible.If I want to test for performance I would do it in a separate slow machine. Why cripple development needlessly?

Slowness is a feature, not a bug.

I've uttered the same sentiment myself (admittedly as an excuse for still running a 386sx in the mid-90's)

However this is only productive if you're not working with (a) compiled code, on a (b) project large enough that compile times are non-negligible

In some build environments, the difference in RAM or CPU is measurable in terms of (literally) hours of wasted time per day :(

Happy to finally hear someone that agrees with me.

The 12" Macbook replaced my triple-27" Windows desktop & Surface Pros (Windows user since Win3.1 here.) The high DPI screen makes all of the difference.

Just got the new Macbook Pro before Christmas to drive the LG 5k and I am still using the 12" Macbook half of the day and 100% while traveling.

If it's 'good enough' now, how will it be an OS update or two down the road?

Probably still fine. MacOS updates tend to get faster if anything.

Bought a base model 12 inch Macbook a few weeks ago and love it. Haven't had any issues with performance so far, although I haven't tried any IDEs yet, just been coding in iTerm2 and Vim.

well.... depends. Apple invests heavily into making sure SW runs lean on metal

Only on newer hardware. Trust me, you don't want to be caught running the latest OS on older Apple hardware because it will run like molasses. If your hardware is the "minimum supported model" or the next most recent, you're better off not upgrading at all.

MacOS Sierra runs superbly on my 2012 rMBP. It's only a couple months shy of 4 years old.

Mac OS Sierra slowed down my 2014 Mac Mini noticeably. I see a lot more beach volleyballs now when doing everyday tasks which were ran smoothly before the upgrade.

I think the difference in experiences is due to HD vs SSD. I've found Apple's latest OS's seem to do terrible with spinning disks. Thankfully all my machines are SSD, but I've seen a few Mac Minis with HDs that are really slow whereas the same machine with an SSD is fine.

"If you want to write yesterday's software, use a laptop" - me / paraphrase of Alan Kay I think?

I get why people are still blacksmiths making door handles and I think that's great. But I'd rather be in a giant machine shop making aircraft carriers.

I have no idea where this analogy is going.

I'd rather be on a mountain making sleds?

Don't be a douche, it was a good analogy.

Of course it wasn't. People on laptops and people on desktops are making the same thing, just desktop users are doing so with more horsepower.

Sure we're all making software which is just bits in memory, but I think that's an extreme simplification. Maybe you're thinking of how we're all just editing text to make programs? But then that doesn't account for what you do with the program you just wrote.

I think you're thinking of using more horsepower for strong scaling, which is a good use, but I'm more referring to weak scaling. You can work on bigger problems with more horsepower, not just solve the smaller ones faster.

And then when you try to deploy that carrier, find out that it's too big for the slipway?

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