Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help

Re:Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help by old-gregg on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @03:15AM (#433383)

Sure about that? I bought two (Macbook + MBP) and I do regret. Wasted $3.5K. LCDs on regular Macbooks are as cheap and healthy as $0.99 cheeseburgers and OSX/Finder can't hold a handle to Ghone/Compiz when to comes to window/file management. Font rendering isn't in the same league as what Linux/Freetype is capable of, especially in languages other than English. And lots of interesting software requires googling to install: most are 1st class citizens on Linux and 2nd - everywhere else.

Both of my Macs developed some hardware issues in their first year, and both issues are quite widespread among other Mac users according to Apple forums.

Just pointing out that the world is bigger than it seems.

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Re:Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help by sethbc on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @03:39AM (#433409)

While I certainly haven't had the same experience when it comes to the hardware or installation issues, I couldn't agree more with the first part of your post. I moved over to the mac for a long time, but I find myself more at ease in Linux.

In fact, I never understood why the RoR guys insist on macs for development - I've found development much easier on linux. On the other hand, I'm also not trading in my mac any time soon - it's by far the best music recording platform out there.

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Re:Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help by riobard on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @09:05PM (#434696)

I'm quite fond of Apple's font rendering and font design, esp. the Monoco monospace font. The way it looks in both TextMate and VIM is astonishing to me.

No, the same font renders like a crap on Win/Linux/FreeType/Cairo/whatsoever ...

Considering I'm facing the code in the font most of the day, I'm willing to pay $100 to just have it.

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Re:Laptop of choice for a Programmer, Need Help by jbjohns on Friday January 16, 2009 @02:21PM (#437112)

Sorry, but this post is nonsense. Mac's font rending not in the same league as Linux/Freetype?? Nope, it's far above it.

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