Need a New Laptop for Programming

[arkon]

:lol:  :lol: :lol:  My first program was written on punch cards. 

 

Well I mean in this day and age.

 

We do currently do C programming with a text editor and GCC to compile it for school, but it's more for learning than actual practical reasons.

[flibberdipper]

You could probably program on a netbook if you wanted to. Anything with an i5 or higher would probably be perfectly fine.

[jam08060]

Well I mean in this day and age.

 

We do currently do C programming with a text editor and GCC to compile it for school, but it's more for learning than actual practical reasons.

 

When I want to get real work done I usually only use Emacs and a relevant compiler...

[madknight3]

When I want to get real work done I usually only use Emacs and a relevant compiler...

Different programmers have their preferences.

[ragedev]

MacBook Air/ Intel Ultrabook alternative

[Zeruel]

I don't think I've ever met anybody who would even consider developing an app with just a text editor and a compiler...

You have guys that live and swear by vim(vi). Some programmers just love using the terminal. When I'm developing on raspberry pi I just use nano, and install c++ header files manually. 

 

I really love the look of "retro programming" stuff so when I really need to use an IDE i make it look like vim

[Markmjb]

Programming isn't that computer intensive, Just depends on your budget and what you want to do with it, but  tips I would take in consideration:
 

-Take a 15 or 17 inch screen, not only because a bigger screen is useful when having several programs open, but also because then they have more room for a decent keyboard.

-Did I mention a good keyboard? You are gonna type a lot of code and so the main priority should be a good keyboard. If you really like full size keyboards than you pretty much have to look to a 16 or 17 inch model.

-An SSD  is a must, doesn't mean you have to go ultrabook, a friend of mine bought a good cheap laptop with a 5400rpm drive and replaced it with an ssd, worked like a charm.

[jam08060]

Different programmers have their preferences.

 

Yes, but you will find that the majority of programmers out there use VI(M) or Emacs for 90% of their programming with the exception of programming languages like Java...

[madknight3]

Yes, but you will find that the majority of programmers out there use VI(M) or Emacs for 90% of their programming with the exception of programming languages like Java...

Perhaps, but even assuming your statistics are true, that may change over time. More and more editors and IDE's are around now then there used to be and many new programmers don't have preferences for old favourites. For example I know very few people in my Comp Sci program that use Emacs or VI(M). Maybe they will pick them up during their career, maybe they wont. I personally don't use either but then again, most of my development is using Windows for .NET and mobile platforms so it's probably not where they shine.

[jam08060]

Perhaps, but even assuming your statistics are true, that may change over time. More and more editors and IDE's are around now then there used to be and many new programmers don't have preferences for old favourites. For example I know very few people in my Comp Sci program that use Emacs or VI(M). Maybe they will pick them up during their career, maybe they wont. I personally don't use either but then again, most of my development is using Windows for .NET and mobile platforms so it's probably not where they shine.

 

You are pretty much required to learn VI(M) if you ever interact with linux based servers...

It is the only editor that is guaranteed to be on such machines...

[LePawel]

GS70, my target mobile machine when I get my placement

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gs70

 

[arkon]

You are pretty much required to learn VI(M) if you ever interact with linux based servers...

It is the only editor that is guaranteed to be on such machines...

 

I suppose we do typically use Vim or Nano whenever we SSH into the school servers, but we typically just use Sublime Text for things if we're not in the Terminal/IDE.

[jam08060]

I suppose we do typically use Vim or Nano whenever we SSH into the school servers, but we typically just use Sublime Text for things if we're not in the Terminal/IDE.

 

You are also dealing with school servers...

[tbc]

Yes, but you will find that the majority of programmers out there use VI(M) or Emacs for 90% of their programming with the exception of programming languages like Java...

 

i know linux people like to think this....but they're dead wrong.

 

c has an INCREDIBLY small developer-base nowadays (the days of genuinely novel kernels is long gone).  c++ is much stronger, but it's really not that important nowadays (fronted by microsoft office and game programming).

 

java IS the banking industry programming language. if you don't know java, good luck getting a job based on merits alone.

 

web technologies are king: js, php, ruby on rails.  objective-c is the next one after those.

 

when you make web apps, you use the tools that your company is willing to pay for and can buy support for (aka insurance).  that is usually visual studio.

 

 

remember, you only talk about your preferred tools when you either have no competitors or you're below 50% of the marketshare (that being different from mindshare).  vim users talk ALOT.

[jam08060]

i know linux people like to think this....but they're dead wrong.

 

c has an INCREDIBLY small developer-base nowadays (the days of genuinely novel kernels is long gone).  c++ is much stronger, but it's really not that important nowadays (fronted by microsoft office and game programming).

 

java IS the banking industry programming language. if you don't know java, good luck getting a job based on merits alone.

 

web technologies are king: js, php, ruby on rails.  objective-c is the next one after those.

 

when you make web apps, you use the tools that your company is willing to pay for and can buy support for (aka insurance).  that is usually visual studio.

 

 

remember, you only talk about your preferred tools when you either have no competitors or you're below 50% of the marketshare (that being different from mindshare).  vim users talk ALOT.

 

LOL.. I'm not sure you read anything I said in my previous post... also, your understanding of the developer base for C is flat out wrong.

I could argue the developer base for C is the strongest of any language to date; the reason being is that 99% of all embedded applications are written in C.  People don't program microprocessors / microcontrollers with js, php, or ruby on rails.

And I could argue that the market share for embedded applications is much stronger than the market share for the internet as a whole.

There are >7Billion people on the earth (as of 2012) with an average of 1.5 devices (laptops, phones, etc...)

This does not include vehicles, corporations, household appliances, etc...

When you think about the many components inside each of these devices that all require code to work (sometimes thousands of components), you can clearly see the market share for C increase (99% of these programs are written in C).

 

What you affiliate with programming is web development.

 

I could go on here... but its not really worth the time to continue...

 

Finally, for the majority of programming, text editors, in general, remain king not IDEs...

[arkon]

You are also dealing with school servers...

 

And? They're university servers.

[jam08060]

And? They're university servers.

 

Excuse me... I read your post too quickly and thought you said when you access the servers you use editors other than command line based editors...

 

What I was saying is that in the industry there are a huge number of servers that developers will run into that will only have things like VIM, nano, or emacs...

[ygohome]

I never understand why vi is such a hot topic or why it is resisted.

 

It is "the" editor for UNIX. That is not even debatable. 

 

It's not hard to learn.  A simple cheat sheet for the basics is all you need at first.  Soon you'll be hitting escape key in Word. lol

 

If someone's job is to work from a unix command line, they will know and use vi.

[NInety]

This laptop is pretty much the best one in your price range.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152405

[tbc]

LOL.. I'm not sure you read anything I said in my previous post... also, your understanding of the developer base for C is flat out wrong.

I could argue the developer base for C is the strongest of any language to date; the reason being is that 99% of all embedded applications are written in C.  People don't program microprocessors / microcontrollers with js, php, or ruby on rails.

And I could argue that the market share for embedded applications is much stronger than the market share for the internet as a whole.

There are >7Billion people on the earth (as of 2012) with an average of 1.5 devices (laptops, phones, etc...)

This does not include vehicles, corporations, household appliances, etc...

When you think about the many components inside each of these devices that all require code to work (sometimes thousands of components), you can clearly see the market share for C increase (99% of these programs are written in C).

 

What you affiliate with programming is web development.

 

I could go on here... but its not really worth the time to continue...

 

Finally, for the majority of programming, text editors, in general, remain king not IDEs...

 

i'm just curious if people need some more indepth clarification on why this is unbelievably stupid.

 

1.  he just said that every single device needs to be programmed with it's own unique program even when it's the same device.

 

2.  an oven has several thousand microprocessors inside of it.

 

what kind of comoany do you work for exactly?

[ygohome]

Please no more fighting. The op just wants laptop recomendations

[jam08060]

i'm just curious if people need some more indepth clarification on why this is unbelievably stupid.

 

1.  he just said that every single device needs to be programmed with it's own unique program even when it's the same device.

 

2.  an oven has several thousand microprocessors inside of it.

 

what kind of comoany do you work for exactly?

 

All I'm allowed to say is that the company I work for makes memory.

 

I cannot say anything more than that.

 

And as far as the original post is concerned... If you decide to go the laptop route, I'd suggest something highly portable and not as much of a desktop replacement gaming notebook...

[Parks]

Hey there,

 

I just asked exactly the same question myself for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately my old notebook blew up it's graphics card four days ago after two and a half years and now I am going to order mine tomorrow. I am getting into programming (teaching it myself for about 7 months now) and I really thought what would make a good choice for me.

 

The reasons I chose the two models below are as follows:

• Portability - This one is important to me, cause I work at different places a lot. So it should not weight too much and i like reading and watching tutorials in bed (that's why i love convertibles)
• Power - It should provide a pretty decent performance without becoming a gaming desktop replacement thats way over 5 pounds max. I had a MSI GT780 and it was just too heavy to carry it around but I needed that desktop replacement as a student, cause I couldn't afford two desktop PCs one at college and the other one at home and a super portable notebook at that time. So think of what fit's your needs and your budget.
• Screen size and quality - at least 13 inch but 15 inch tends to be the sweet spot for me as I like to have multiple code panes side by side.
• Touch - I really like to have that feature cause first of all I love taking notes and visualizing thoughts and secondly, there will be more and more touch friendly devices around in the future and you want to make sure you keep your things optimized for that too.

The list of notebooks that fit in that range is rather small.

1. Sony Vaio Fit Multi-flip 13"/14"/15" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpTlOGuT7ww - Tested this one today at a local retailer

• Pros: Nice and big screen (WQHD on the 15" model), light and good quality build, , N-Trig Active Digitizer, 
• Cons: Keyboard is kinda stiff and there's little key travel, Fan noise problems at the 13 inch model

1. Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 12.6" or the Ideadpad (no digitizer option) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1UeogkPyAc

• Pros: Keyboard on a Thinkpad is a breeze to work with (my brother has got one), very very solid build quality, Wacom Active Digitizer, Non-glossy screen
• Cons: Hinge Design - it's still better than most of the competitors but, the keyboard will touch the surface when used in tablet mode

I know there are a lot more to discuss, like the ones from Asus or even Acer (R7), but they all have bigger downsides (hinges, design, build quality) than adding that one feature that is worth compromising another. Watch the reviews as I really like her reviews as she is breaking things down pretty seriously.

 

If you give nothing about touch, then get a Samsung Ativ Book 9, which is probably the best Non-touch Windows Ultrabook around and you can choose between various screen sizes. The keyboard and the screen and the touchpad are superior and the build quality of this thing is amazing. My girlfriend has got one and she loves it. Probably also watch out for the Samsung Ativ Q or whatever the renamed version of it will be called, but this one has a native Android plattform on it if you are into Android app development.

 

My choice will be the Sony Vaio Fit Multi-flip 15" with an 256 GB SSD, i5 and 8GB of Ram, just because I like to have that bigger screen at the higher resolution, I just couldn't my eyes off that screen today. Whatever notebook you choose is completely up to you, just make sure you think of every scenario you probably come across in the future and decide which one fits you best.

 

Greets,

Peter

[Satlen]

If you want to pay twice as much for half the hardware. Especially for programming a Mac is a bad idea, he will be more than likely working with Visual Studio. So he will definitely need a Windows based machine. He will also get more hardware for the same price as a decent Mac. I don't buy Apple products for that reason, they rip you off by selling you a label. He should stick to a Windows machine, it will be faster and last him longer in the long run. You can buy a OS X disk for under $30 and load it up in VirtualBox, the same goes for Linux. Three OS's in one, and faster hardware than a Mac.

It is pretty easy to install a windows partition on a mac, so that wouldn't be an issue.  The reason they cost so much is because they are of good build quality and last a long time.  Also, the trackpads & keyboards on the macs are very nice.

[GoodBytes]

I'm taking a college programming course for the next two years. I was wondering what laptop's would best suit the needs of school, programming, and work weel for atleast 3 years. My budget is 1600$. If anyone could help me out that'dd be great

Ok, bringing things to topic.

I would suggest the Surface Pro 2, especially if you have good eyes to use it at Windows 100% DPI scaling.

I use the Surface Pro 2 for university (Computer Science), and for work (personal project, and actual work.. like I go to work with my Surface Pro 2, and do work directly on it)

Why the Surface Pro 2?

1- Run full Windows 8.1 Pro, so that you can run your favorite programs like: OneNote 2013 for the best note taking software around, Visual Studio, Eclipse, NetBeans, Virtual Machine of your choice for Linux based OS, etc.

2- Fast! Crazy Fast! No cheap out done at the inside. The SSD used is really fast, no "SSD just to say it has an SSD, but in reality its the slowest SSD you can get". They put a real fast one. System boots up (power to desktop) in less than 6sec. Programs installs fast, program starts fairly fast. Beside that, LPDDR3 memory is used (low powered DDR3) at 1600MHz (fastest speed that the CPU supports), so again, no cheap stuff. I guess the only thing that "sucks" on the system is the web cam. It's your usual 720p like on most ultrabooks. Fine for Skype however. Stereo Speakers are neat and pretty good, in my opinion for such such device. And the mic is pretty darn good as well. I have no problem recording class.

3- Real power under the hood, with a Core i5 dual core 1.9GHz (2.9GHz with Turbo Boost). And the Turbo Boost is not throttled. It will spike a few times at 2.9GHz, and mostly be at 2.8GHz. The Surface pro dual ultra quiet, high quality fans, and large copper with heatpipe heatsink will handle it. The system will only get warm at worst. Not hot, despite it's small size. It

4- Digitize pen by Wacom. One thing you probably forgot to question yourself, and soon realize, with a laptop, you can't do diagrams, you can't do math, you can't do graphs, you can't enter math symbols. Ok well you CAN, but good luck. The time you do what you need to be done the professor will be completely ahead of you, and you'll be so behind. I know I had a laptop.

The digitize pen is no tow in the Surface Pro 2. It uses Wacom technology with 1024 pressure point detection, making your hand within look like you did it on paper, and the tracking (after full 273 point calibration to your hand and position) very good (the entire pen is being tracked with Wacom technology, that is why you need to do such big calibration, it's downside of the technology, but, currently, it's the best you can get). You can opt to get a similar device as the Surface Pro 2, that features N-Trig, but you can't write small, and tracking response time is lagging, plus the pen need a special battery to operate (AAAA - that's 4x A's, not 3)

5- Gorgeous 1080p IPS panel with wide angle and very good response rate.

6- Great battery life, varying between 4h to 12h based on settings, and what you do. For me, I can get well over a school day with it (10am to 5pm, and still have Windows report more than 3 hours left), and that's me using the display at ~30% most of the time, but 0% at times for classes where the prof turns off the light for the projector. And record 1 class, using wifi for web surfing/e-mail (Outlook) running on the back. Bluetooth off (I don't use it). A power keyboard is coming soon, where it will be a physical keyboard like the Type Cover 2, but with battery

7- High build quality everywhere, magnesium construct, attention to details, where even the USB ports enclosure are in titanium black to hide them, and the cuts for the connectors are exact to hide the connector

8- The add-on keyboard Type Cover 2, feature almost standard size keys allowing you to get used to it fairly fast. If I had to say anything bad about it, is the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys are being shared with F9, F10, F11, and F12, which are keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio. So you have to use the Fn key, or switch their roles with Fn+Caps Lock. Touchpad is OK. It's actually a good one, but due to the small form factor of the device, the touchpad needs to be small and can't have physical button, which degrade the usage. But, in any case you'll use the touchscreen or most likely have a laptop mouse in any case. I love the fact that you can flip the keyboard backwards, disabling the keys, and protecting the back when in tablet mode.

9- Junk free. Full Windows 8.1 recovery inside. Best Windows experience you'll get. The only potential "junk", is Office 2013 trial/activator pre-installed. Which, is good if you want to buy it in any case. It's simple and quick to uninstall it from Program & Features panel. The device is so clean, that all the drivers control panel and all that are just not there. Microsoft took pride to keep all drivers sleek and slim, which I think also contributes in it's fast performance.

10- Not locked. Despite what you may think, the device is not locked to Windows 8.1. Secure Boot in the UEFI menu can be disabled, and you can install Linux based OS (although I would not recommend it), and some even installed a MacOS on it (hackintosh)

11- Has a MicroSD card for storage expansion, and standard USB 3.0 plug for allowing you to connect anything you want. While 1 might seam limiting, so far, I did not find it limited. I usually have my mouse attached on it, if anything. The rest I just use SkyDrive, to sync my files with my desktop. After doing some analysis on the Surface Pro 2, I can say with confidence, that Microsoft didn't put 1 USB ports just for giggles. I see no way they could have put a second one. You either have the hinge system for the kick-stand in the way, or speakers. Now, of course, this assumes current design. I am sure, things can be engineerly solved by reworking the hinge system to be more in, inside of the edge to still work great, and allow a another USB port. But my point is that, assuming this is the best they could have done so far, its not lacking because they didn't want, there is a reason behind it.

I can spend all day talking about the Surface Pro 2. But everyone that saw it are truly impressed with it. If you give me 3k, and tell me you can buy any computer today, I'll say Surface Pro 2, and you keep the change. If only had a powerful Nvidia or AMD GPU, it could completely replace my desktop, and I would have no problem doing so.

Review:

(small error in the view, Lisa points the microSD card reader and say it's a speaker). I do remember reading somewhere about her apologizing fir the slip of tongue. Lastly, the unit in the review is a Core i5 1.6GHz, that's the old CPU model. Microsoft decided to do a small CPU upgrade. Also, Microsoft did release an update which improve the battery life since the review was done).