I'm completely disillusioned with hardware manufacturers
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So I want this[^] to proceed. Please. I've used Macbook Airs for years, then switched to the Macbook Pro and immediately regretted it because the keyboard is beyond awful and I get about 2 hrs battery life (That's from full charge, running only VS, but working steadily). I'd get easily 5-6 on a Macbook Air. I desperately wanted the Surface Pro 6 or Laptop 2 to be great but they stuck with proprietary 1980-style chargers, and for me it's USB-C or nothing. Once you get used to plugging in a single cable for your charging, video, USB and sound it's hard (and regressive) to go back to multiple cables. So given that the iPad Pro is USB-C, is faster than 92% of laptops currently on the market, is crazy thin and light and doesn't require me to remove it from my backpack at airports, I want it as my primary development machines which means I need Visual Studio on it. Please. I've been waiting for the "perfect" laptop for over 20 years now, and I honestly do think it won't happen. We'll move over to using tablets or even phones as our primary device and laptops will go the way of desktop PCs. Maybe Qualcomm will make a Snapdragon chip that can compete with an i7 and then things will get interesting.
cheers Chris Maunder
ThinkPad X1 Carbon | 6th Gen Business Laptop | Lenovo US[^] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme | 15.6" laptop with extreme power & portability | Lenovo US[^] Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th generation 2018 with HDR display and Dolby Vision - YouTube[^] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th Gen (2018) Review - YouTube[^]
Caveat Emptor. "Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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So I want this[^] to proceed. Please. I've used Macbook Airs for years, then switched to the Macbook Pro and immediately regretted it because the keyboard is beyond awful and I get about 2 hrs battery life (That's from full charge, running only VS, but working steadily). I'd get easily 5-6 on a Macbook Air. I desperately wanted the Surface Pro 6 or Laptop 2 to be great but they stuck with proprietary 1980-style chargers, and for me it's USB-C or nothing. Once you get used to plugging in a single cable for your charging, video, USB and sound it's hard (and regressive) to go back to multiple cables. So given that the iPad Pro is USB-C, is faster than 92% of laptops currently on the market, is crazy thin and light and doesn't require me to remove it from my backpack at airports, I want it as my primary development machines which means I need Visual Studio on it. Please. I've been waiting for the "perfect" laptop for over 20 years now, and I honestly do think it won't happen. We'll move over to using tablets or even phones as our primary device and laptops will go the way of desktop PCs. Maybe Qualcomm will make a Snapdragon chip that can compete with an i7 and then things will get interesting.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
laptops will go the way of desktop PCs
What, they'll be around forever, because a hand-held device with a touch-screen will never attain the productivity levels of mouse & keyboard use?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Chris Maunder wrote:
laptops will go the way of desktop PCs
What, they'll be around forever, because a hand-held device with a touch-screen will never attain the productivity levels of mouse & keyboard use?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Firstly, If a keyboard and mouse is the pinnacle of human-computer interaction then I'm quitting this industry now. The keyboard and mouse are a stop-gap measure - a long term stop-gap measure - but one that needs to be replaced. Secondly, I'm not suggesting that our current input methods will go. We still need keyboards and mice and big screens. The industry has been moving (for years) towards replacing desktops with laptops, and now laptops with tablets (surface, iPad Pro), and then it'll be foldable phones replacing tablets (eg the phones in Westworld[^]). All of these will, I assume, still allow us to connect to more spacious input and output devices.
cheers Chris Maunder
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ThinkPad X1 Carbon | 6th Gen Business Laptop | Lenovo US[^] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme | 15.6" laptop with extreme power & portability | Lenovo US[^] Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th generation 2018 with HDR display and Dolby Vision - YouTube[^] Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th Gen (2018) Review - YouTube[^]
Caveat Emptor. "Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
Just not a fan of them. I've tried to like them, but each time I pick one up and take it for a spin it just doesn't do it for me.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I'd guess this couldn't be used for the massive scale dev you probably do, but, this might be of interest, Chris: Continuous: Professional C# and F# IDE for the iPad [^]
Quote:
What's New Version History Jul 12, 2018 Version 1.2 * C# 7 support * Import files from other apps * Support for Reflection * Play button now shows full screen
If I had an iPad, I'd check this out: for US$9.99 on the Apple Store.
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
Now that is pretty cool! Probably not sufficient for me to move CodeProject development over to it, but we're getting there!
cheers Chris Maunder
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Not quite a laptop but ... kaypro portable [^]
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
Yes!! That was the first machine I learned to code on. What a blast from the past.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I too wish Apple would narrow the development gap between their iPad and Mac products. I'm playing around with MonoGame and considering an Apple version of my game. Regrettably, as I understand it, I need to purchase a Mac for this task. I wouldn't mind getting an iPad, which would serve other purposes, but I have no other use for a Mac. Oh well...if I can figure out the minimum required Mac, maybe I'll pick up a dinosaur off eBay.
This is actually why I initially bought a Macbook: I wanted to develop occasionally on a Mac but my primary world was Windows. The Mac hardware is beautiful and runs Windows exceptionally well (faster than my desktop at the time, and my desktop was a beast) so I got a great laptop with fast Windows that allowed to develop on a Mac.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote:
I've been waiting for the "perfect" laptop for over 20 years now,
Taking this where I tend to take most things, I think the only hope you have for a perfect laptop will be found in a bar, complete with dancer. Cheers cheers cheers!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Some things I just can't afford.
cheers Chris Maunder
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This is actually why I initially bought a Macbook: I wanted to develop occasionally on a Mac but my primary world was Windows. The Mac hardware is beautiful and runs Windows exceptionally well (faster than my desktop at the time, and my desktop was a beast) so I got a great laptop with fast Windows that allowed to develop on a Mac.
cheers Chris Maunder
Doh! Chris, you may have chagrined me :) I began thinking about running macOS in a Windows VM (to save money). This may have led me to box in my thinking. I hate it when that happens. Running Windows in a Mac VM, on a notebook, might work for me. It would buy me some portability and I'd get the Windows licenses for free with VS Pro. Less than ideal, from a cost perspective, but more useful than a Mac Mini, if I can get away with it. Dang! Now I have to Google VM options for Mac. Any suggestions/preferences for best VM solutions on Mac (assuming this is an option)? Probably, I should start a new topic. EDIT: I would have given you two votes up for the knock on the noggin, but was limited to one :) SECOND EDIT: Nope, doesn't make sense for me. I can buy a recent Mac Mini AND a Windows notebook for the about the same price as a recent MacBook. Seemed like a good idea at first, but the economics simply don't make sense.
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Firstly, If a keyboard and mouse is the pinnacle of human-computer interaction then I'm quitting this industry now. The keyboard and mouse are a stop-gap measure - a long term stop-gap measure - but one that needs to be replaced. Secondly, I'm not suggesting that our current input methods will go. We still need keyboards and mice and big screens. The industry has been moving (for years) towards replacing desktops with laptops, and now laptops with tablets (surface, iPad Pro), and then it'll be foldable phones replacing tablets (eg the phones in Westworld[^]). All of these will, I assume, still allow us to connect to more spacious input and output devices.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
Firstly, If a keyboard and mouse is the pinnacle of human-computer interaction then I'm quitting this industry now. The keyboard and mouse are a stop-gap measure - a long term stop-gap measure - but one that needs to be replaced.
Let's hope you never have to deal with Linux people: they think the pinnacle of human-computer interaction is typing on a keyboard. No mouse. No touch. No voice. No scroll. No click. No pen. Just tap.
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Chris Maunder wrote:
Firstly, If a keyboard and mouse is the pinnacle of human-computer interaction then I'm quitting this industry now. The keyboard and mouse are a stop-gap measure - a long term stop-gap measure - but one that needs to be replaced.
Let's hope you never have to deal with Linux people: they think the pinnacle of human-computer interaction is typing on a keyboard. No mouse. No touch. No voice. No scroll. No click. No pen. Just tap.
My first 10 years of programming was in FORTRAN using vi in a research lab with a bunch of scientists who didn't trust these new fangled "PC" things. In 1996.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Doh! Chris, you may have chagrined me :) I began thinking about running macOS in a Windows VM (to save money). This may have led me to box in my thinking. I hate it when that happens. Running Windows in a Mac VM, on a notebook, might work for me. It would buy me some portability and I'd get the Windows licenses for free with VS Pro. Less than ideal, from a cost perspective, but more useful than a Mac Mini, if I can get away with it. Dang! Now I have to Google VM options for Mac. Any suggestions/preferences for best VM solutions on Mac (assuming this is an option)? Probably, I should start a new topic. EDIT: I would have given you two votes up for the knock on the noggin, but was limited to one :) SECOND EDIT: Nope, doesn't make sense for me. I can buy a recent Mac Mini AND a Windows notebook for the about the same price as a recent MacBook. Seemed like a good idea at first, but the economics simply don't make sense.
Eric Lynch wrote:
I can buy a recent Mac Mini AND a Windows notebook for the about the same price as a recent MacBook
This is a personal decision but I've had a few mac minis and the performance is on the wrong side of Really Awful. I'm also trying hard to find a Windows laptop that meets or exceeds what I get in a Macbook and so far nothing. The DELL and the Matebook has the webcams at the bottom of the screen so in conference calls everyone gets a gret view of your nostrils. You also need a shoehorn to open the Dell. The Yoga has those odd hinges that look like they'll scratch anything that comes within a foot of them. The Surface products have no USB-C. The Macbooks just feel so nice and have been unbelievably reliable (previous Windows laptops would last 18 months max). I've tried VMs in macOS and it's just not there yet in terms of performance. I've tried Parallels and VMWare Fusion, and I'd lean more towards VMWare if I had to, but I tend to stick to Bootcamp (and in fact there's nothing stopping you from having both at the same time using the same Windows partition - it's actually kinda nice if perf isn't an issue) The old Macbook Air is still, IMO, the best laptop they've made. The new ones have truly awful keyboards (esp. the arrow keys which I use all the time for programming). Another big knock against the newer Macbooks is that Apple have Thunderbolt initialisation in the OS, whereas Windows expects it to be in the firmware, so you don't get hot swappable Thunderbolt in Bootcamp. This means if you unplug an external monitor from the USB-C port in Bootcamp you need to restart your machine, otherwise your display will quickly start flickering and you'll lose connection.
cheers Chris Maunder
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So I want this[^] to proceed. Please. I've used Macbook Airs for years, then switched to the Macbook Pro and immediately regretted it because the keyboard is beyond awful and I get about 2 hrs battery life (That's from full charge, running only VS, but working steadily). I'd get easily 5-6 on a Macbook Air. I desperately wanted the Surface Pro 6 or Laptop 2 to be great but they stuck with proprietary 1980-style chargers, and for me it's USB-C or nothing. Once you get used to plugging in a single cable for your charging, video, USB and sound it's hard (and regressive) to go back to multiple cables. So given that the iPad Pro is USB-C, is faster than 92% of laptops currently on the market, is crazy thin and light and doesn't require me to remove it from my backpack at airports, I want it as my primary development machines which means I need Visual Studio on it. Please. I've been waiting for the "perfect" laptop for over 20 years now, and I honestly do think it won't happen. We'll move over to using tablets or even phones as our primary device and laptops will go the way of desktop PCs. Maybe Qualcomm will make a Snapdragon chip that can compete with an i7 and then things will get interesting.
cheers Chris Maunder
Just get a stack of backup batteries... Different OSes are involved. Or else use the iPad to RDP to a capable desktop somewhere, but that would require a constant connection. A DBA friend of mine did half of his work remotely on an iPad with a good, external keyboard. But he worked mostly in command line mode on unix boxes.
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My first 10 years of programming was in FORTRAN using vi in a research lab with a bunch of scientists who didn't trust these new fangled "PC" things. In 1996.
cheers Chris Maunder
Goodness. You've made about 5 people stare in awe at me, when I said "1996" . Most guesses were around 1981-1986. Pointer arithmetic and stuff like that is why you can't let scientists develop software. I mean, someone had to invent the bloody things, but leave the actual programming to Computer Science.
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Goodness. You've made about 5 people stare in awe at me, when I said "1996" . Most guesses were around 1981-1986. Pointer arithmetic and stuff like that is why you can't let scientists develop software. I mean, someone had to invent the bloody things, but leave the actual programming to Computer Science.
Science would never get done if scientists weren't able to roll up their sleeves and hack something together. The apps are merely a means to an end. This is why things like R and Python are so great. Easy to learn, powerful, readily available, and no C-snobbery to get in the way of your string and duct tape.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Science would never get done if scientists weren't able to roll up their sleeves and hack something together. The apps are merely a means to an end. This is why things like R and Python are so great. Easy to learn, powerful, readily available, and no C-snobbery to get in the way of your string and duct tape.
cheers Chris Maunder
Yes, give researchers better tools, I've seen the impact of researchers using Python instead of Octave/Matlab: instead of hacking primitive operations and memory, they can focus on the data itself and logic. Just don't let computer researchers around a compiler, god knows what they'll make of it next (Remember C++ evolution....).
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Doh! Chris, you may have chagrined me :) I began thinking about running macOS in a Windows VM (to save money). This may have led me to box in my thinking. I hate it when that happens. Running Windows in a Mac VM, on a notebook, might work for me. It would buy me some portability and I'd get the Windows licenses for free with VS Pro. Less than ideal, from a cost perspective, but more useful than a Mac Mini, if I can get away with it. Dang! Now I have to Google VM options for Mac. Any suggestions/preferences for best VM solutions on Mac (assuming this is an option)? Probably, I should start a new topic. EDIT: I would have given you two votes up for the knock on the noggin, but was limited to one :) SECOND EDIT: Nope, doesn't make sense for me. I can buy a recent Mac Mini AND a Windows notebook for the about the same price as a recent MacBook. Seemed like a good idea at first, but the economics simply don't make sense.
I've been running various Windows and Linux OSs in VirtualBox on my MBP since it was new in 2010.
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Firstly, If a keyboard and mouse is the pinnacle of human-computer interaction then I'm quitting this industry now. The keyboard and mouse are a stop-gap measure - a long term stop-gap measure - but one that needs to be replaced. Secondly, I'm not suggesting that our current input methods will go. We still need keyboards and mice and big screens. The industry has been moving (for years) towards replacing desktops with laptops, and now laptops with tablets (surface, iPad Pro), and then it'll be foldable phones replacing tablets (eg the phones in Westworld[^]). All of these will, I assume, still allow us to connect to more spacious input and output devices.
cheers Chris Maunder
Chris Maunder wrote:
Firstly, If a keyboard and mouse is the pinnacle of human-computer interaction then I'm quitting this industry now. The keyboard and mouse are a stop-gap measure - a long term stop-gap measure - but one that needs to be replaced.
With what? Audible interfaces? It's already been shown, very, very clearly that no-one wants to work in an office/library/bar/any other place by talking out loud to their computer (although it's quite usual for me to swear at mine, no matter where I am). Dancing around, waving your arms? See "Audible interfaces", above, and add that it takes considerably less effort and time to type precise wording than to perform it in sign language. Touch screens with fingers? Not even remotely useful for a large number of tasks -- Hell, even selecting text on a phone/tablet can be a major PITA; God knows how much fun it would be to draw diagrams, or do anything that needs fine control. Touch screens with probes? Sure, let's use an on-screen keyboard with a probe, to type words. It's only, like 99 times slower than using a real keyboard. Cranial implants? Yeah, right. If you think I'm willing to allow MS, Google, Apple, or any of the open-source loonies direct access to my mind, you've got another think coming. And the Thought Police would become a reality in under a decade. Things wot follow yer eyes and expression? Yeah, it might be good for shooting dirty commies in a jet fighter, but let's see you write a report, using that. Here's a reasonably pertinet quote from Dickens: "The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists." That, along with 80-odd per cent of the best sentences in literature can only be written by hand or with a physical keyboard. Most of what people enter into computers is words (commands don't count -- unless they're spoken out loud, in which case they're a PITA to everyone nearby). To enter words, you need to do two things: 0: Put the caret in the place where the words have to go. 1: Enter the words. Good luck finding that something that will work better than the near-perfect "stop-gap measure" we have now. I'm a friggin' miracle worker, when it comes to this kind of innovation, and I can't think of a damned thing that would be more efficient/productive/acceptable.
I wanna be a eun
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Chris Maunder wrote:
We'll move over to using tablets or even phones as our primary device and laptops will go the way of desktop PCs.
I'm not sure. I've tried writing code on a tablet - the Nexus 7 and the WookieTab - and it's been a miserable experience, all because of the keyboard. You think the Macbook Pro KB is bad? Try it on tablet! Particularly if you are a touch (or even a fast multi finger) typist it's a major exercise in frustration. And while predictive input on Android is great for letters, posts, SMS, and email it elephants your code like nobody's business. Just the auto capitalisation after a "." is enough to drive you to the arms of a "proper keyboard" ... I don't think we'll move to tablet / phone until we find a better input method - and the first person to suggest "voice input" should be defenestrated...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640 Never throw anything away, Griff Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
Actually, the tablet concept is great: just use any Bluetooth keyboard you want. I get along great with this. I only use the onscreen keyboard in meetings, traveling in some type of vehicle, etc. If I am planted in a singular location to do work, I've got a Bluetooth keyboard I like.
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Maybe...not sure. Though, in case I ever decide to throw it onto their App Store, I don't think I want to risk the licensing cops coming after me :) From what I understand, you can pick up a used Mac cheap enough...simply don't want to go through the hassle for a single-purpose (for me) device. Originally, I hoped I could purchase a legit macOS license and run it in a VM...oh well, wishful thinking. I guess I've been spoiled by Android. Simply fire up an emulator for free or purchase a device that is almost free. Sometimes I wonder if Apple is actively discouraging independent developers.
Eric Lynch wrote:
I guess I've been spoiled by Android. Simply fire up an emulator for free or purchase a device that is almost free.
You get what you pay for.
