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Ask YC: Why do you recommend a Macbook?

45 points by kirubakaran ↗ HN
I started my programming love life with Apple //c. After that, I've mostly used relatively inexpensive laptops running Linux / school PCs.

But I am seeing almost all 'budding hackers' nowadays coding on a Macbook/pro. Startup School is full of Macs!

pg said that Mac lets him drag and drop code from vim to repl - and he was very happy about it. Is it little things like that or is there a cumulative reduction in friction everywhere that justifies the bigger price tag? Is customizing a Mac easy or do they throw arbitrary hurdles at you like with the iPod/iPhone?

I currently run Gutsy on Lenovo T61 for dev. I don't want to miss out on the Mac if there are significant advantages.

117 comments

[ 35.7 ms ] story [ 1021 ms ] thread
robmnl
stable, affordable, good user interface. expose and spaces are time savers.

big no is battery time.

I don't think you're missing out on too much if you primarily code.

graywh
OS X is often easier than Windows and powerful like *Nix/BSD.

The plastic case on the MacBook isn't the strongest, though.

moog
Is there a cumulative reduction in friction everywhere? I'd say yes. I've used Unix, PC and Mac for years and have always found I get more done and am happier when it's on a Mac.
jgrahamc
Agreed, I feel the same way about my MBP. Basically, I've used all sorts of things for years (going back to CP/M machines, via DOS and every flavor of Windows, SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, ... ) and the Mac is the right combination:

1. Stuff that I need to get done just works (e.g. sync my Bluetooth phone to address book, hook up to wireless networks, do backups)

2. Aesthetically pleasing. Don't discount this when it comes to hackers... we like elegant code and machines.

3. Unix underneath... no loss of power.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
manvsmachine
I speak from limited experience with Macs, but I'd think that a lot of it has to do with the 'out of the box' experience. I'm running Gutsty right now too and I have it tweaked just the way I like it, but it can take some time / effort to get everything set up "your way". Of course, none of this applies if you're running the stock Gutsy config, but why would you want to do that? Essentially OSX is for people who want the benefits of *nix but don't enjoy, or can't spend the time, hacking their OS as much as hacking their code.

@robmnl: Expose functionality is built into compiz-fusion, and Linux users have been enjoying virtual desktops for god knows how long.

tokipin 

  pg said that Mac lets him drag and drop code from vi to repl - and he was very happy about it
you can do that on any OS with the GUI shell for Vim (with Vim running in Vi compatible mode if that matters) [edit]: actually it doesn't look like it's possible. i could have sworn it was though <.< my bad

i'm guessing the iPod has something to do with macs becoming more popular

kirubakaran
I tried this now but it didn't work for me. I must be missing something. Please help.

I am running GVIM (I am at work so I am on Windows). I am trying to drag and drop a block of code to Python REPL. It is not happening.

ibgeek
Ummm... copy and paste?
kirubakaran
Mac supposedly allows you to drag&drop code without explicit copy&paste.
ibgeek
That may be true but that is such a minor thing. I use OS X and Linux... definitely not something that ever makes a difference.
utx00
you don't mind not having page-up/page-down keys?
curi
macs do have page up and page down keys
alex_c
Really?

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/15839.jpg

rksprst
Yes really, look at the up and down arrow keys.
utx00
what i meant is a dedicated key that when pressed will trigger a page-up/page-down event. on the mac you have to press a modifier key to make it go. most of the time this is ok (and i don't really mind it whilst in emacs ctrl-v/meta-v are basically the same thing) except that you can press ctrl-pageup/down on firefox to toggle the tabs. on the mac you have to press ctrl-mod-pageup/down ... same goes for gnome-terminal. i don't feel like turning my fingers into a pretzel for no good reason.
akkartik
Yeah, not having home/end, pgup/dn, is a huge pain in the butt. I never realized how much I used them for navigating within textboxes. Especially in combination with shift and control.

In general expect to spend a good amount of time reacclimatizing on keybindings when going from PC to mac worlds. I find myself constantly guessing what modifier (shift, fn, cmd, ctrl, alt) to replace in this keybinding to get it to work.

spydez
Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V isn't exactly the same thing as drag 'n' drop...
ibgeek
On my Macbook, my windows often always overlap because the resolution just isn't high enough to "stretch out." So, I find that dragging and dropping is actually more difficult due to having to switch windows.
SwellJoe
Select, middle mouse button click is copy and paste where I come from, and it's lack is the single most uncomfortable aspect of working in Windows or Mac OS X for me.
tokipin
oops. i thought i had done that some times. i'll see if i can come up with any useful mechanisms to compensate for lying
tokipin
allright. i came up with something but 1) it only works on windows and 2) you need an extra app. it's a really really good app though

the app is AutoHotkey: http://www.autohotkey.com/

and the script is:

  #SingleInstance Force
  
  #Enter::
      SendInput mr^a ;mark current spot in register r and select all
      Sleep 20
      SendInput ^c{Esc}``r ;copy, stop selection, return to spot

      ;if we have a REPL already, use it.  otherwise start a new one
      IfWinExist, Arc REPL
          WinActivate, Arc REPL
      else
          start_arc()

      MouseClick Right, 50, 50 ;open context menu
      SendInput p ;p for paste
  exit

  start_arc()
  {
      Run cmd /k cd "c:\\documents and settings\\blahblah\\desktop\\arc2"
      Sleep 100  ;wait for the cmd window to show before typing
      SendInput mzscheme -m -f "c:/documents and settings/blahblah/desktop/arc2/as.scm"{Enter}

      Sleep 200  ;wait for title to change
      IfWinExist, C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe - mzscheme
          WinSetTitle Arc REPL
  }
it's pretty simple. as you can see, it's for Arc, and it's setting a script to windows key + Enter. if you're editing some code in Vim, hit the hot key (when you're in command mode) and the script will ctrl+a -> ctrl+c the code in Vim and right-click paste it in the REPL. if there isn't a REPL open it will first open one and then paste it

you can make modifications such as only running what you have selected (would work well with visual modes,) only running the current paragraph (using the parentheses commands in Vim,) running what you have copied (i.e. Run-from-clipboard) and so on and so forth. you can also have a little window pop up where you can type some code and have it execute etc etc

kirubakaran
I do use AHK for other things but never used it for this purpose, so, Thanks! I do my coding in my Linux machine though.
projectileboy
I can also do this in IntelliJ (using my Arc plugin).
mrtron
It is physically well made. I beat the crap out of my macbook and it puts up with the abuse without problem.

It is fast and reliable. It is portable. I would pay double the price for how great it is.

utx00
You're not missing out on anything, there are no significant advantages (specially not over a t61) I sold my powerbook on ebay, and I'm still happy with my t42 running gutsy as well.
darjen
Almost all of my coworkers use Thinkpads. I started off on a T43, and have recently been upagraded to T60. Would never trade it in for a mac.
utx00
Good for you. I started out on a T20 (I'm old). Still have it. Still love it. One of these days I'll move up to a T60 or whatever. For now, T42 still kicks a$$.
stcredzero
I still have a T22 with Libranet (Debian) Linux on it. The keyboard light was great! (Much cheaper than a backlit-keyboard, and accomplished the same thing. But I do everything nowadays on my old G4 Powerbook.
Zak
I started out with a Powerbook 140, and I don't think 26 counts as old here. I have a T20 too - 6th laptop I've owned. I've rebuilt it 3 or 4 times and replaced everything but the screen at some point. It's a good machine aside from having an annoying tendency to corrupt the contents of its CMOS chip.

I've noticed both Apple and IBM/Lenovo dropping in quality over the past 10 years or so. I have a Thinkpad 600X from 1998 or so - it's made mostly of carbon fiber, with a rubber coating. My Z61m is made mostly of cheap plastic, though it does have a metal frame and titanium lid. Apple uses either polycarbonate or aluminum, but seems to have a high rate of logic board failures. I'm not a huge fan of metal on the surfaces of a laptop that come in to contact with my body during use either - it transmits heat.

jey
Because it's the best desktop unix machine available. Where else can you find true unix with a great user experience and full hardware and software support?

I don't use Linux because I no longer enjoy doing sysadmin crap. I also like the MacOS UI.

davidw
I don't think it's as good a desktop experience as OSX, but for a hacker, Ubuntu isn't half bad, and continues to improve by leaps and bounds. Less and less 'sysadmin crap' is necessary these days.

And you can get an Ubuntu machine from Dell that is very well supported.

I wouldn't recommend it to my parents, just yet (they're happy with OSX), but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Dell+Ubuntu to people here. It might not be as sexy, but it's a setup that works pretty well. I had a tibook a number of years ago, and while it was certainly a beautiful machine that got lots of looks, in the end, I'm just as happy with my ugly clunky (but cheap and well supported) Dell.

jey
Yeah, if I was optimizing on price I would just get a Dell laptop and throw Ubuntu on it. (Although I would make sure that all the hardware is well-supported first. I have spent far too many hours patching kernels and adjusting parameters when using Linux with brand new hardware.)
davidw
You can buy Dells with Ubuntu on them:

http://www.dell.com/ubuntu

It was pretty cool to get it, open it up, and see it boot Ubuntu. I admit I did have to tweak it just a bit (about 15 minutes of googling and config files), but I think it was one of the first ones, hopefully they've gotten even better. I chatted with some of the guys working on it at OSCON last year, and they wrote down a few of the bugs I had found.

doubleplus
I got one of these right after they came out, too. Having had no experience with Linux before then, I've spent more than 15 minutes at a time figuring out how to get things to work. Right away, it was a couple nights on nvidia driver and wpa support. And since then, about once a month, I'll have to spend a whole night or two figuring something else out... last weekend it was something with generic vs rt kernels for ubuntustudio. Anyhoo, looking back, I wouldn't suggest it to any relative novices (like me) who really just want to use their computer to accomplish normal tasks, and who aren't into tinkering for the sake of it. Gnome/KDE in K/Ubuntu are really convenient and slick 29/30 days, but to be honest, I'm getting tired of fighting my computer and I'll likely pick up a Mac when I get a new desktop this summer.
Jd
Ditto. I also acquired a Dell+Ubuntu in 6/07. Switched to a Macbook in 10/07. If you are making decent contract money it just isn't worth the hassle to, for instance, try and get a decent music playing software w/ the appropriate codec support.
davidw
Well, if what you want out of a computer is simply and exclusively tool, then some proprietary system might well be better, although Ubuntu is getting close.

If, on the other hand, you relish the ability to open things up and hack on them if needs be (whence "Hacker News"), then the extra effort 'fighting' with Linux is often time well spent. It's a good feeling to know a system from the ground up, or (as is the case for most of us), at least be able to figure out bits and pieces from time to time.

stcredzero
Dell laptops are great if you consider maintenance and repair. I spilled a whole glass of red wine on my Dell Inspiron 1710. Order a $20 keyboard, pull off a piece of trim and undo two screws, do the reverse operations with the new keyboard, and I'm done! It wouldn't have been so easy with my G4 Powerbook! I know, because I've taken it apart a bunch of times, once to upgrade the hard drive. The thing has screws that could be used by watchmakers, and lots of them!
utx00
unless your using gentoo, you no longer have to do that much "sysadmin crap". as if OSX machines were free of "sysadmin crap". i used to use acquamacs on it, and it will constantly break after the monthly updates. from my experience, ubuntu is less work. (this advise is mostly for this crowd. i wouldn't push an ubuntu machine on gradnma. not yet at any rate)
boucher
The amount of "sysadmin crap" you have do to on a macintosh is directly proportional to the amount of "sysadmin crap" you do to your macintosh.
manvsmachine
Every OS has its own version of 'sysadmin crap' to deal with... While I noted that OS X is easier to get up and running optimally, Ubuntu's package management definitely has it beat as far as maintenance goes. Automated software installation / configuration / upgrades goes a long way.
jey
http://www.macports.org

I'm not saying the mac doesn't need any administration -- I'm saying that it's a lot less, and it's less annoying. I haven't ever had to recompile my darwin kernel nor sit around tweaking DMA and PIO settings.

anewaccountname
Suggesting macports is like suggesting gentoo as far as administration time goes.
manvsmachine
neither have I... that's the point I was trying to make regarding apt-get. Kernel updates, dependency installation / removal, (most) drivers, and even entire OS upgrades are 100% automatic. I'm not saying it's perfect, but Linux has come a long way in that regard.
eugenejen
I am speaking from hard customization aspect. I like MacBook better than MacBook Pro in this domain. It is relatively painless to replace hard drive and memory inside a MacBook. Of course I need to do some research to know the power consumption of hard drive and memory before I ordered replacement, so I can avoid overheat inside my MacBook. MacBook pro is great in its dedicated graphic chip and better range of view angle of its TFT display. But to replace a hard drive, it takes pain to remove all screws and lift up cables around the disk. And from what I read from Guy Kawasaki's blog, you can't return a beefed up MacBook back to Apple if you feel it is not what you want.

I went for MacBook because it is painless to add memory and upgrade disk. And I don't mind its less than perfect graphic performance and display because I use external LCD monitor when I can. It is smaller in size and light in weight so it is easier to carry around and it is 50% cheaper than MacBook Pro. I get what I paid for but also a little bit less hassle to mod it.

iowahansen
I'm generally a person that values function more than form, but I have to say it is a real daily joy to work on gorgeous hardware like a Macbook Pro. The reason Macs are more expensive because they only offer high-end hardware specs. A similar spec'ed Dell comes roughly at the same price. If you are hacker, always use the best tools there are. This is an invest in yourself.

Hardware aside, the real reason you should switch is OSX and the applications around it. Stuff just works. Sounds like a marketing message but its true. You can focus on accomplishing the task rather than wrestling with shortcomings and crutches of the environment. Application developers on the Mac also have the philosophy to integrate with existing services as much as possible, which makes a huge difference, because most of the stuff you use is able to talk to each other. Compare that to Windows where every application/service is its own island.

Imho, OSX is by far the best platform out there right now bar none. It's amazing to see how even non-hackers are blown away once they switch.

You should too.

utx00
Have you tried the latest Ubuntu?
gcv
Sure. Two problems with it:

1. Still fairly bad video hardware support. I spent two hours helping a buddy set up a mid-range ATI card recently, and we couldn't get full acceleration to work. The configuration just plain sucked.

2. Fonts in the X environment are so ugly that I can't stare at an editor window full of code. Good fonts are rarely open-source.

Ubuntu is nice, but it doesn't come close to the experience of opening a box, pushing the "on" button, and being able to start working right away.

utx00
1. fair enough. i can see how that could be a deal breaker. You probably know about the sad state of affairs with those vendors, and I guess reasons don't matter much if it doesn't work. all i can say is that it is improving.

2. it's not the fonts. check this out: http://ubuntutips.net/node/10.

in a nutshell, just put <match target="font"> <edit name="hintstyle"> <const>hintslight</const> </edit> <edit name="autohint"> <bool>true</bool></edit> <edit name="rgba"> <const>rgb</const></edit> <edit mode="assign" name="hinting"> <bool>true</bool> </edit> <edit mode="assign" name="antialias"> <bool>true</bool> </edit> </match>

in your ~/.fonts.conf file.

you won't believe your eyes. try it. :)

whatever
And this is why people like the mac. I can edit an XML file in emacs, I just don't want to have to figure out which file to edit and what to put in there.
utx00
here's one example that drove me up the wall:

== swapping ctrl/caps lock ==

* on osx *

http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~jfieber/osx/ -- i believe i ended up using ucontrol.

* on ubuntu *

go to System/Settings/Keyboard Preferences (xmodmap is still there if you're so inclined)

also, off the top of my head, it was a pain to:

1. add widgets to the menubar (on ubuntu i just add it)

2. rsync backups to an openbsd server because of the hfs+ tags

3. changing the buttons in Mail.app -- they were horrible

4. shutting down spotlight (can't even remember that one)

5. verbose booting

6. and my personal favorite: getting a cd out of the player when the power is off.

There are answers, I'm sure, to all these questions but you have to figure it out.

-utx

whatever
Or go to the Keyboard system prefs and click on Modifier Keys.
utx00
i mean, exchange the behaviour of the caps lock key with that of the control key.

ucontrol, and fkeys let you do that. both seem to be unmaitained though.

gcv
The Keyboard prefpane trivially lets you map the Caps Lock key to Control. I used that setup for a long time. Are you actually asking to keep Caps Lock around but map it to Control? I guess that really is tricky, but it never occurred to me as useful, because I never use Caps Lock, so I just happily have two Control keys.
brent
Is that url your page?
utx00
no. i just found that whilst looking for ucontrol. should have made that clearer.
gcv
Thanks, will definitely give it a shot.
kirubakaran
Wow I tried it and it looks great now! Thanks a lot!
scooter53080
>A similar spec'ed Dell comes roughly at the same price.

I believe that Macs are awesome. I want one! But the same price argument doesn't fly. When I bought a new laptop about a year ago, I ended up with a Dell 'cause the same spec'd MBP was double the price, and I couldn't justify the expense. Having a quick look on the respective web sites, that is still roughly the case today. That makes for a pretty expensive OS.

utx00
don't drink the cool aid and save your money. the last straw for me was a bsd socket problem that used to cause crashes on clisp (if you google it you'll find it. circa 2005) -- went back to debian, and i don't even know whatever became of that problem.

your dell is fine.

ibgeek
You shouldn't make decisions like this based on hype or other people's opinions. It's personal thing. You are the one who has to be happy and productive on the platform -- no one else -- so why let someone else determine what you use?
hollerith
Uh, he's asking for advice now before he spends $2000 or so on a MBP. Of course, if he buys it and hates it, he'll go back to what he is using now.
willchang
Devices always work on Windows first, and then drivers are eventually made for UNIX. Software that make hackers productive are always first in UNIX, and then eventually ported to Windows. A hacker who had to use one system for everything is faced with either the horror of having to use XFree86 or the horror of having to build an executable in Windows. Traditionally people got around the problem by having a Windows PC for the devices and a UNIX server for getting work done. With a Mac, you often get the best of both systems in one machine: devices just work, and compiling UNIX software is easy.
comatose_kid
The keyboard feels great on the macbook pros. The downside is the lame insistence on a single mouse button.
projectileboy
I would have agreed once upon a time, but now I either use my mighty mouse, or else the two finger tap.
rksprst
The two finger tap is easier to use than a right mouse button, IMO.
curi
mac programs avoid using right-click context menus as a primary interface approach. so what do you need it for?

for gaming you need to plug in a mouse anyway. otherwise occasional ctrl-clicking isn't hard, nor is the 2 finger thing.

dbryson
I have a macbook which I run linux on. I get the best of both worlds having a great laptop with lots of 3rd party hardware(and now x86). And all the fun of recompiling my kernel.
utx00
well there you go. although i don't know how much fun anyone can have recompiling kernels ;)

cheers.

kirubakaran
My friends and I used to drink cold beer while the kernel recompiled in the background. Happy times. Almost 10 years ago! (Kingfisher (Indian beer))
maximilian
I can see it now: "Dude! New kernel is out!", "I'll get the beer... Psssh, crack, glug glug glug"

Never before were nerds that excited about recompiling the kernel.

kirubakaran
Us = geeks.

( geeks are nerds who can get laid ;) )

mov
I did the same. Using Debian at my Macbook.
plusbryan
I was a mac user when macs weren't cool. Mac OS 9 was like that edgy indie band that suddenly became an overnight success. Sellouts! :-)
bobochan
Hey, I remember upgrading from my thoroughly cool //e to my first Mac -- they were VERY cool at the start. Macs were more like a cool band that has a huge first album, kind of loses their way for a couple of records and then gets the mojo back with a monster record that leaves everybody nodding, "I love these guys!"
dhimes
I got one of the first mac plus machines. A full 1MB of RAM.

People said, "you'll never run out of memory!"

Great machine, though. Hacked some assembly for the 86000.

newt0311
Personally, I got a macbook for the amazing hardware design. It is one of the few laptops I have seen which is sleek, beautiful, and very very effective. The laptop is very well designed. OS X is also well designed but for a different demographic. Thats why I use Linux for the software. Still, the hardware design is amazing.
mixmax
I tried to switch over to a mac a year ago. It didn't work, so I switched back after three months. I found that a lot of little things were annoying, and made me spend more time than I needed on doing trivial things sucha as resizing of windows. On mac it can only be done from one corner, on windows from all four. There are lots of these little things that mean you have to spend three clicks instead of two. I see why they make sense if you're a beginner - it's almost impossible to do anything wrong. Other things that annoy me the fact that it is impossible to find a lot of the little shareware programs I use under windows, and that their equivalent of Outlook really sucks. And I simply don't understand why there is only one mousebutton. That alone was enough to switch back.

Overall my opinion of macs is that they are excellent for beginners, and for looking cool in the cafes but for me it simply didn't make the cut for serious work.

I don't code, but work in outlook, excel, word and a browser. This might make make a difference.

jmtulloss
The pseudo multi-touch trackpad on the macbook is awesome. It takes away the pain of the one mouse button and makes scrolling a joy. After experiencing that trackpad, no other trackpad even comes close (though I bet the one on the macbook air is even more of a joy to use)
utx00
I code. I had the exact same experience.

This is two years ago and things might have improved. But the ports system did not have that much software, I didn't like the feel of the keyboard, it's a huge heat sink (and then in cold NY mornings it would be cold to the touch when I started it), I didn't like the anti-alising, I didn't like the default terminal program (and couldn't be bothered to get a new one ... that was the point of getting a powerbook in the first place - all the supposedly annoying sysadmin things I wouldn't have to do). java support was horrible too (that might be better - and besides this is not a java crowd)

I didn't like all the proprietary formats for iphoto, and itunes either.

oh and yeah. I have a lot of mail. The import into Mail.app took days. It was ok after that. But once again, the mail files use a proprietary tagging system to know when mail is read and what not. It wasn't fun porting that back to maildir.

try ubuntu. you might like.

utx00
incidentally, if anyone is interested i found this script to turn all my files from elmx into mbox (and eventually maildir). well written. works like a charm.

http://www.jwz.org/hacks/emlx.pl

mixmax
It's interesting to hear a coder having some of the same experiences. And btw I had the exact same problem with porting mails, except it took me around three days to get working.

I'm actually dual booting w. windows and Ubuntu to try it out. And I like it.

pistoriusp
Steve jobs hates buttons, I don't know about the other models but the MacBook Pro has two buttons, as does the mighty mouse, you've just got to enable it.
dcurtis
The mighty mouse only has one "button," but uses software to create the second click based on a sensor.

I guess that's just another example of just how much Steve Jobs hates buttons.

Also, not including the keyboard, the MacBook Pro has 3 buttons-- the mouse button, the power button, and the battery indicator button.

rksprst
There is a right click, simply click while you have two fingers on the touchpad. This is much simpler than moving your thumb to click on the right button.
alps
When Linux can get it's GUI in shape, I will gladly move to it. I will miss TextMate dearly, but I will use Linux when the GUI (Gnome and KDE) people can get this one thing correct:

Separation between line editing commands, and GUI commands.

It is very simple. What happens on Linux when you are in Thunderbird and you do "^a"? It selects all! What happens when you do that on the command line? It takes you to the beginning of the line! Why a different experience for the exact same universal command?

On a Mac, "^a" always brings you to the beginning of the line, whether you are in Terminal, a Safari text edit box, a Mail email message, etc. "command a" always selects all, whether you are in Terminal, a Safari text edit box, a Mail email message, etc. The same goes for "^k", "^y", "^e", etc.

Cocoa uses basic Emacs bindings, and the user experience because of it is hands down better. I drove myself nuts on Windows for 3 months, then Linux for 8 until I told my employer that I either get a Mac or I leave. They gave me a Mac. My hands, brain, productivity, and my employer are all better off as a result.

kingkongrevenge
> 'budding hackers' nowadays coding on a Macbook

Why hack on a laptop? Why not use a desktop that's much cheaper, much more powerful, much more reliable, and easy to fix in one day? You can get two for the price of a new laptop.

If you're on the road with sufficient frequency that you actually need a laptop to work then you're probably a salesman or manager, not a hacker.

I can get to all my data from any machine: everything is on the web or accessible by ssh. I don't need to lug one with me. Paper works fine for the occasional six hour period away from a machine.

I do have an old laptop I sync to my desktop with unison to use on the road when need be, but that's just not very often.

jmtulloss
To work with other people wherever they end up. We're not working in some cubicle day in and day out, we need to go to our co-workers and sit there next to them hacking on problems. I prefer hacking on my desktop too, but I could not operate without the ability to take my work with me.
kingkongrevenge
> sit there next to them hacking on problems

This is high level design, no? It works fine on paper/white-board. You sit alone to refine it and do any implementation. You pair program on one machine if someone is clueless and being ramped up.

stcredzero
There are times with a sufficiently high level dynamic language, where you can usefully and quickly pair program your high level design. The ideal platform for this is a desktop on a table (not a concave cublicle desk, just a flat table) with a wireless keyboard.
jmtulloss
I find that it can be useful to just be in the same room when working on dependent, if separate tasks. It's often necessary to nail down details as you're thinking through every possible different situation, which really only occurs once you're coding every possible situation.
kirubakaran
I like to code in the bus. I have a 1 year $4.75 bus pass with which I can go anywhere around here (Seattle). I can sit by the window and code.
jmtulloss
I find a macbook with 2 virtual machines (linux/windows) gives me the power I need, the operating system I love, and the flexibility to develop in any and all environments.

Plus, the size of the macbook is perfect when it's not your primary computer. It's the best piece of hardware I've ever owned.

loumf
Not everything I do with a computer is programming. For everything else I do, a Mac is perfect. And it's a pretty good dev machine.
hollywoodcole
Funny how when you are about to buy something expensive as a Macbook Pro you do a lot of research and then you see other people asking a question like this for you.

I'm about to buy a Macbook Pro last-gen and I just thought that was weird!

albertcardona
I used a PowerBook Ti 3.5 1Ghz for 4 years and I loved it. But since most of my programming is in java (whatever), I _had_ to switch. The last year I simply run ubuntu-ppc.

IMO:

The best of apple laptops: (1) long battery life, (2) bright screens, (3) very comfortable keyboards -if you remap the apple keys to control.

The worst of apple laptops: (1) they get burning hot -even new macbook pros; (2) the spinning beachball (of death) can get to your nerves -too much swapping; (3) their sharp edge will hurt your wrists -as opposed to a smoothened, curvy Thinkpad T60 (my current).