Really, the *only* reason i have a mbp right now is because of the incredible screen. There are reasons I *don't* like the mac but most of them are easily surmountable. But with machines like asus's zenbooks, toshiba's kirabook and such coming in with incredible displays, today i'd have made a different choice.
Macs are nice for a lot of little things, and they are very good development environments, but a nice linux distro on a kirabook would also be really slick. The most important thing for a development machine is memory, I'd say minimum 8GB to be able to run VMs and still keep everything else running happily. On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 7:34 PM, Yin Wang <[email protected]> wrote: > Maybe I should say buy an old macbook instead a new one because it's the new > ones that freeze. There are long complaint threads on Apple's site since it > was released: > > https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5481839 > http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5296 > http://www.macrumors.com/2013/11/07/apple-releases-fix-for-13-inch-retina-macbook-pro-keyboardtrackpad-issues > http://notebooks.com/2013/10/31/apple-promising-to-fix-freezes-on-13-inch-macbook-pro > > Believe me it's still not the end. After the EFI update, the laptop fails to > lock the screen randomly, and recently started to crash, more deadly - total > crashes, the screen will not turn off even if I close the lid. Worse, it > leaves no report on the system log... Other people reported the same problem > on the first thread. > > But maybe I digressed too much here, but PCs with Linux should work well for > any programming tasks. > > > > On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 4:05:35 PM UTC-8, Lei Zhao wrote: >> >> Just to add a few more data points here: I’ve had five Macs and none of >> them had crashed more than three times. I used to own a top model of >> ThinkPad and its motherboard died within six months. So, there can be some >> luck involved and you ended up getting a defective unit, but a single data >> point is not sufficient to say their overall reliability is bad. >> >> To answer Jason’s questions, OS X has changed a lot over recent versions, >> especially Lion and Mountain Lion. But most of the major changes are >> UI-related, like natural scrolling, mission control, etc. Missing them could >> affect your productivity but shouldn't prevent you from doing programming >> tasks. However, I won’t recommend an used Mac if it’s so overpriced. 50% of >> the original price for a three year old is reasonable, but I wouldn't pay >> any more than that. If you don’t have budget for a new one, and you can’t >> find an used one, just keep using your Linux box. It might not be as >> comfortable but wouldn’t prevent you from doing anything. >> >> Lei >> >> On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at 5:18 PM, Yin Wang wrote: >> >> I would suggest a new PC instead of an old Mac if the prices are similar. >> Macs are good looking but not really that good in terms of reliability. My >> new macbook pro 13" retina display and Haswell processor crashes badly. >> Everybody was affected for late 2013 model. Apple released a firmware fix >> but it's still not really fixed. Now it comes to a deadly stop once per a >> day or two! Apple is quite loose these days for its quality control. A day's >> using it would have discovered the problem. I have no idea how they could >> have released these defective products. >> >> >> On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 2:00:14 PM UTC-8, Jason Hsu, Rubyist wrote: >> >> I realize this is off-topic, but I understand that an overwhelming >> majority of Rubyists use Mac computers and not PCs. I currently use >> Linux-powered PCs. Yes, I ditched Windows years ago just like many of you. >> Using Linux on a used PC is the cheapest way to compute. (I've been able to >> buy a 4 or 5-year-old PC that works for as little as $40-$50.) >> >> I'm interested in purchasing a Mac to put myself on the same page as other >> software developers. (I'm used to Linux distros that provide the look and >> feel of Windows XP.) I will use the Mac for software development projects, >> but I intend to stick with my Linux-powered PCs for general computing. (I >> don't want to get locked into the Mac world, because it's so much more >> expensive. Also, there is a case to be made for being versatile.) >> >> I'm thinking of buying a new mini (starts at $600), a new MacBook (starts >> at $1000), or a refurbished MacBook (starts at $850). >> >> Some questions: >> 1. How much has OS X changed over the past several versions? Is something >> from 5 years ago obsolete? Linux, on the other hand, is free. Any current >> Linux distro will work very well on a 5-year-old PC, and there are even some >> Linux distros (like Puppy Linux and antiX Linux) that work well on PCs that >> are 10 or more years old. >> 2. Is it just me, or are used Macs so exorbitantly expensive as to defeat >> the point of buying a used computer in the first place? I looked at >> Craigslist and found a number of used Mac laptops selling for as much as a >> new one. Most of the Macs selling for a few hundred dollars or less were >> very old, such as G4s. (I understand that those are 10-15 years old. Good >> luck getting even $100 or even $50 from a 10-year-old PC.) >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rubyonrails-talk/d4e715d9-89de-40e5-9b60-9ca873893c31%40googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rubyonrails-talk/9435da40-3a16-49a7-88cd-6214f8cc57db%40googlegroups.com. > > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. 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