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Comment by Ayesh | Hacker News Reader

It's with ample RAM and the latest Intel CPU. Assuming the whole thing draws 100W, that's also including 72kWh of electricity.

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I'm not sure what the exact 'rule' is here, but you wouldn't use a contraction in this sentence.

It is, with ample RAM and the latest CPU.

From https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/contractions-correct... -

Contractions can be used in any position in a sentence; however, homophone contractions such as "it's" and "they're" sound better when followed by another word or phrase. The reason is that the sounds of "its" and "it's" and "they're" and "their" are so similar that they can be confusing unless they are used with the context of an additional word.

I think it's less to do with homophone confusion and more to do with usage patterns relating the contracted part to a phrase rather than a single word [1] [2]. By the logic of the homophone explanation, the following exchange should be much more acceptable than a sentence ending with "it's" or "they're", but to me it seems equally strange:

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"Yes, I'm."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkZyZFa5qO0

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitic

To be fair, the contracted version doesn't read nearly as nicely.

    Q. Is it good for training?
    A. It's with ample RAM and the latest Intel CPU.

    Q. Is it good for training?
    A. It is with ample RAM and the latest Intel CPU.

I think they are agreeing with it not reading as nicely. But you still need the comma. Otherwise it sounds like:

"It is with great pleasure..."

I don't think you necessarily need the comma but it would depend on the reader, I think. I didn't need the comma to read it correctly but I can see how you might mentally insert a pause between "it is" and "with" that makes it read weirdly.

Probably better to reorganise it as "With ample ram [...], it is."

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