This is the sentence before. IMO you’re being way too harsh. He is clearly trying to emphasize that the average consumers has lost their need for ports, thus, most lightweight computers aren’t sufficient for the author’s line of work. But OMG the author doesn’t know the proper context of Instagram! This whole article loses credibility! Listen to yourself.
But, everyone's welcome to their own opinions and hobbies. My best sysadmin laptop was probably my 13" macbook pro before they took away the ports. Built in ethernet and real USB for the KVM crash cart, which is the only dongle you'll typically need (other than, say, a usb-serial adapter, but even if you had a native serial port you're carrying a handful of console cables and adapters anyway, so the usb-serial part is hardly an additional hassle).
To work in these environments efficiently, an air is far from ideal. It's a good machine, but the amount of dongles you'd need to carry on a typical day would be rather intimidating, hooking it up and managing the rats nest of adapter cables would be tedious.
From this perspective, it's not unreasonable to call them toys. Simple things like having prominent rubber feet helps a lot with not having to worry the machine will slip and fall if the surface isn't perfectly flat and level.
With that said, I believe introducing an idea through calling other things toys without explaining why they are akin to toys in your line of work, is absolutely not the best way to present an idea.
Anyway, some features, like having the laptop be able to work as screen and keyboard for a headless machine would really be amazing in this line of work!
I think he's doing the tech equivalent of pretending not have heard of a popular band or not knowing what the Super Bowl is to try to make yourself look extra cool.
I'd recommend that the author look at small mechanical keyboard layouts, like the HHKB [1].
[1] https://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server1800/3cc7b/products/549/i...
> I thought about how a notebook would turn out if it were developed not with design, but the needs of real users in mind.
I have a low tolerance for "this is exactly how you do this job" when jobs like sysadmin and coding can involved a great deal of variation and variety.
I have no idea who these folks are who can't see all that variety. I do know they're horrible to work with.
There's something about that statement that put me off the entire article. Maybe the author truly is 3l337, but it just comes off as condescending. Plus, who uses a notebook for Instagram? The author managed to be simultaneously derisive and clueless.