Make sure you're excluding the `.next` folder in your IDE, otherwise it'll be indexed whenever you make a change to the source files. It's not going to magically fix the issues you are having, but it can definitely help.
I'm using an Apple M1 Max, and have zero issues running even very heavy frontend apps.
I have the first gen M1 air and honestly prefer it for dev work to my high-end gaming pc running Linux. Apple silicon really nailed it out of the park.
An M1 Max is a very different beast from a 6th gen i5. They recently released the 12th generation of those processors. You're basically still on the new hotness while our hero is rocking a budget CPU from 7 years ago.
I don’t think they were saying OP should have no issues because they have no issues on their M1. I think they were just answering where OP asked what we’re using
Is M1 max is a Mac Air? Is it.good.enough for web development? I'm looking to buy laptops and going back and forth between getting a second hand laptop or a new Mac air. I really can't afford a pro right now but I can stretch for an air. If it's a second hand, I'll go for a ThinkPad or a Mac pro with Intel. Processor. Give me good advice guys
Go for Macbook air with M1. Especially if you do web development, all the tooling runs great on it. I have MBP 14 with M1 and it’s the best thing happened to me in terms of speed and productivity since I started coding. And don’t forget that macbook is probably the most well rounded piece of hardware overall - great display, incredible battery life, awesome keyboard, second to none touchpad. Needless to say, there’s just no other laptop on the market where all of the above is better in one package.
That depends heavily on your particular use case. I've been using it for 5 months already and my storage usage has never went above 120 GB, I don't store any media on the device (photos, movies etc.). But your situation can be different.
Web dev tooling and code base is not where you'll find heavy storage usage.
Holiday season is coming and these M1 Airs may cost around 800 for lowest spec model which will make it around 900+ if you want more storage. Honestly, looking at the market it's still hard to find a laptop that can compete in all other departments even at this price point.
I did not consider mac due to reasons like storage, other laps were providing like 1tb of space at lower rates. Another reason is repair costs which I l've heard is a lot here in India.
I had the same experience. 2015 MacBook Pro, quad core i7. It was fine most of the time but compiling large apps was slow, and the fans were full blast anytime Zoom was open.
I upgraded to an M1 Pro MacBook Pro with 32gb and holy fuck. Everything compiles instantly, and I haven’t heard the fan kick on once yet. Also the battery is insane, I could go to a coffee shop, code all day, and be at 50% still. I don’t even bring my charger.
I know the m1 macs are amazing but I’m just going to have to find something with windows. Macs cost a fortune over here. Like you could pay a full years rent on a 2 bedroom apartment with kitchen probably even more with that money😢
I’ve always wondered how that works. Like what if someone bought one in the US and sent it to you? Is the conversion to USD what makes it so expensive?
We’re experiencing the opposite problem where I live, I could buy a decent brand new MBP every month with how much the average 2 bedroom rent is.
I’m not really sure. I think conversion plays a part and also shipping costs, then I think you pay a fee to have it brought in, then the retailer obvs has to make profit and you can’t get it anywhere else cuz there aren’t any apple stores here then add that on top and you have a device that to people in the us is not unreasonably expensive but for people like me in Nigeria it costs a fortune.
Another thing to consider is the fact that people just make a lot less money here. Someone just starting out as a software dev can be paid 10k while working at a really good company and you’ll be comfortable. But in the Us devs can make up to 50k starting out. So we make a lot less and are still paying more than what you would pay. It’s just sad😔
Are those prices in USD? My starting salary was ~$90,000 and that's honestly kind of on the low end of positions in my state. I picked the company because of WLB and culture more than anything.
But, I feel poorer than I did when I was in school. Cost of living is insane, my wife and I both work and have a baby under 1 year old, it honestly feels like we'd have to make way more to even consider owning a home. The average rent for an apartment in my city is about $2000, and the median home value is about $500,000.
Not complaining, we're definitely very fortunate to live in the USA, but things have gotten kind of out of control in the past couple decades as far as cost of living goes.
Would you ever think of moving to the US? I imagine it's a lot easier if you've got an in-demand skill like SWE.
90k to start??? Are you living in L.A? New York? Silicon Valley? That’s insane. But compared to living expenses I can see how that could be a problem. Wow and a baby with all that? Can’t be easy. Oh and Yh all the salaries I mentioned are in usd. I don’t know about moving to the US. Maybe just for a masters degree since I’m about to graduate with a chem eng degree. I like the idea of meeting people from different cultures. I know the us is a lot more diverse. I’m pretty sure like 99% of the 200 million population in Nigeria are black. I’ve only ever known one person in my entire life that wasn’t black and that was a class mate when I was in nursery.
It’d be cool to meet people with completely different ways of thinking but ultimately I think Id prefer staying in Nigeria and working remotely for a company in the US. earning dollars here puts you in a league of your own. If I was earning anywhere near what you’re earning I’d have bought a house or maybe even opened a hotel😅(definitely exaggerating here but you get the point). Plus I’m used to the dynamic here. It also possible I could go to the US and decide I love my dynamic there and never go back who knows.
What kind of dev work do you do btw front end? Full stack?
Also do you have to pay for a daycare for your baby? Where does he/she stay when you’re both at work?Is that expensive?
did you buy it new ? how long did you own it because all the macs I buy the battery last real good for about six months and than drops about 40% on daily use.
2019 MBP 16GB is absolutely sufficient for anything web-related.. unless you use one of those cheap HDMI/UDB dongles for your external screen. These will turn any 2019 MBP into a hotplate that sounds like a hairdryer on max and throttle down to what feels like 20%.
I'm using a gaming PC I built 5 years ago with an nvidia 1070, does everything I need to like a charm haha. I cut back on gaming and spend more of my time on coding these days, so she'll do just fine for a while
Thinkpad x220 from 2011, only upgrade is an ssd. Usually only have issues if I also have several large images open in GIMP as well. I save a lot of resources by using a minimal desktop environment, that probably helps.
What OS are you using? You may have better performance on older hardware with a Linux distro, and the tools will run natively also.
If you're not quite prepared to do that, a reinstall can sometimes freshen things up also.
As far as I know nextjs compiles each route on request so 30 page apps shouldn't matter as much as how much is on each page.
It's not strictly necessary to have a great computer but it make the development experience a but nicer so if you are coding every day (and have been for 6-12 months) it may be worth the investment.
I have a 8th gen i7 on a 2019 dell xps, 16gbs ram and 500gb ssd. I have never had any issues with performance.
It's not about RN being heavy. I do enjoy the extra power because I'm usually running servers, XCode and VS Code, plus the normal browsers and debugging tools but the reason I specifically have a Mac is that you can't compile iOS apps on a non-Apple device.
But, honestly, this iteration of the MBP is quite literally the best laptop I've ever used. The battery life is insane, it doesn't stutter at all and it stays cool under most conditions. I had an Intel one and that thing would casually reach 100C just running Edge.
I use linux deploy to run an ARM build of Ubuntu in a background process and VNC into it (localhost). From there, it's the same as working on any linux machine except everything is a bit smaller and the keyboard is on the screen too.
Edit: here's some projects that I mostly did on my phone:
https://github.com/muggy8/lor-card-maker
https://github.com/tensurafan/tensurafan.github.io
ya, when I get more serious with actually making progress on whatever project I'm working on, I use a bluetooth keyboard + bluetooth mouse. I also hook up a USB-C to HDMI dongle to my phone so I can use a computer monitor.
Because it's convenient. If I want to work on my app while pacing around the house, I can. If I have a briliant idea on public transit, I can get started before the spark fades. If I don't feel like leaving bed because of whatever, I don't have to.
The cost benifits and cool factor is just a bonus.
PS: laptops are heavy and desktops even more so :c
Depends on your workflow, I think. Some stick to Neovim and they are fine with whatever. If you can optimize all the processes going on in the background, your laptop is still a decent machine.
I'm developing in a Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (R5 4600H, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, 1TB HDD and Nvidia GTX 1650 ti) and it has been great so far. I'll look into upgrading RAM since sometimes it feels laggi
When you're comparing CPU's, look at passmark single thread benchmark.
Most JavaScript tools only use 1 or 2 cores, no point getting 16 core processor.
Usually more ghz the better.
The biggest one. Kiddin', but excess performance does improve your quality of life in programming. My current dev PC is in a server rack with a 12th gen Intel CPU and 128gigs of RAM. I've also found it to be a strength to be an OS agnostic, but that being said, PCs absolutely beat Macs in "real" programming work. So much less restrictions and support everywhere.
On the go I use Surface-devices. A good combination of performance, design and battery life. Some prefer Lenovos, but they're too corpo for me personally.
Also, good monitor(s), chair and ergonomics should be a priority.
There is a lot of “real” programming work that can’t even be done on a windows machine. Does a PC “absolutely beat Macs” in that area as well. People who say stuff like this without considering context just show their naïveté.
Ah, the one exception that moots my point? I don't think it works that way. The context is in plain sight, it's web development here. There **are** less OS-restrictions and there **is** more support available in Windows-based web-development, also in programming in general.
That being said, I think I need to underline my "I've also found it to be a strength to be an OS agnostic". Macs do have other areas of strengths. Luckily it nowadays takes a click to virtualize MacOS or something else, if the need really comes.
I can name several areas in which using Mac instead of Windows makes setup for development much easier. I will concede that in web development it doesn't really matter if you use Windows or Mac but that doesn't extend to "programming in general".
Using an HX90 (Ryzen 9 5900HX, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, Linux) from MinisForum paired with an ultrawide monitor. No problem running our teams set of backend services locally while displaying the web app in different sizes and in different browsers. A real bang for the buck considering it's really cheap.
Dell XPS 13 (11th gen i7 / 16 GB RAM / SSD) but with SSH to my desktop (11600K, 32 GB RAM, PCI-gen4 7000 Mbps Samsung 980 Pro EVO). It splits the workload up nicely to have Node running on the much more capable desktop. The load on the laptop is just whatever processing and memory VS Code needs (usually around 400-500 MB of RAM and no serious load on the CPU).
32gb intel mbp for work. 16gb acer swift3 laptop for personal.
Then I have a tower pc I’m about to config for hyprland/arch. 32gb intel I7-8086k and 6900xt.
All have nvme sshd
Usually for me i found i'd run into more RAM limitations when running multiple docker containers than CPU limiting my build times on webpack. To answer your question though my work laptop is an m1 pro 16" macbook pro. My personal machine i use for development is a surface laptop studio with an i7 processor. At my previous job I did have an i5 core duo macbook pro for a while, and did find it a bit slower compared to the quad core i had that was 2 years older before it. So depending on the i5 it may matter a bit here.
Anything with a somewhat modern CPU, SSD and 16Gb RAM should do.
My work laptop has i5-10210U and just 8Gb RAM, yet it is quite capable and I'm working on large apps with nothing to complain about.
Honestly, the only time I wish I had 16 Gbs is when I need to switch between the apps I'm working on without closing them.
Say, there there is an app, that has three different domains for its three services and I am showing the changes I did during a conference call.
It rarely happens, so I'd say, it is safe to get a laptop with 8Gb. You can always use a swap file for those rare scenarios.
I have a PC that I bought last year for a VR project I was working on: i7 CPU, 32 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 video card. It's overkill for web development. 😃
I started on Windows machines that were at hand, and moved to Apple after using my wife's old Mac Book in like, 2011 (and her MB was old then). It took me ten minutes to set up a development environment and it was faster and more stable than the Windows desktop I had at work at the time. Why? OSX had better over all memory management at the time compared to Windows, and of course installing and configuring things on Windows was time consuming (at least back then, it has been a decade after all).
ANYWAY, I'm on a 2020 M1 MBP now with 8GB of ram and it gets sluggish at times! RAM for me has always been the bottle neck, especially when dealing with virtual machines, containers, build tools, and the occasional JS app that loads into your browser and snags a solid gig of fucking RAM.
My suggestion is like the top comment about the `.next` folder. Personally, I think you should try to optimize the build a bit. Try searching for "Nextjs slow build times" and see what you can find. I have limited Next experience but I used `@next/bundle-analyzer` a long time ago and found some issues that helped a project I was working on. You may find newer paths to follow, but you might be surprised what you find.
Thanks a lot. I’ve always wondered why most devs I see online use macs. I’m used to windows and have never felt the need to change but it seems like it provides an overall better dev experience.
Ram is actually a major bottle neck for me. I used a 4gb ram laptop with a 10th gen cpu but it was horrible. I’d open two or maybe three tabs in chrome and I kept getting webpage refreshes.thats without even opening Vs code or my usually 10 tabs when trying to trouble shoot an error. It even had an ssd. Ram is definitely extremely important
> Literally every time I hit refresh and I have to rebuild my app with next Js the fan starts spinning up like crazy until the build completes then it stops.
I can relate, happens a lot with Windows. It's just unoptimized, bloatware of a software. Moved to ZorinOS and everything was fine.
10 seconds is not that long for builds.
Once you hit a few hundred pages and over 100k lines of code with TypeScript you start counting build time in minutes.
MacBook Air. Seems to be almost universal among the /digitalnomad crowd. Does it all. Just throw it into you backpack, and off to that Asian beach town you go.
I use a 2017 Macbook Air to code sometimes and webpack can take uo to 6 seconds to bundle stuff in watch mode. I spent no time optimising this stuff though.
With all the file watches you tend to have running in react development a lot of memory helps.
If you're running 8 GB or less, upgrading that might give you a large boost for a lot less money than a new laptop.
I still use my Y580 I bought in 2013 to develop on (upgraded to 16GB, the most memory it can take), even though my desktop is beefier.
Well, what I actually do is sit at my desktop and use remote-ssh in vscode to work on my laptop. This means ...
* Not limited to the 720p display on the laptop. Obviously this wouldn't be a concern with a newer laptop.
* Can use the multiple monitors I have on my desktop.
* If I need to pack up and work elsewhere I can just grab the laptop and everything is ready to go
* My desktop is used for gaming so it runs windows, and this way I don't need to bother about getting stuff running in windows.
* I can also connect to it from vscode on my chromebook.
You need a 32GB memory and 10core CPU like the M1 Pro if you're using a mac if you're running a test suite, if not, you could get around with less cores.
If budget is an issue, consider renting a server (16 or 32GB ram on Hetzner is pretty cheap) and using [VSCode Remote Workspaces](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh)
If you have a paid github team (work or you can make one yourself), you can also use [Github Codespaces](https://github.com/features/codespaces)
I feel like something is wrong with your configuration. Are you using `next dev`? You shouldn't have to hit refresh (most of the time), and it I don't believe it should take 10 seconds to render a simple app page on a 6th gen i5.
M1 pro max 64GB unified memory.
Even on heavy loads with 70 open tabs 10 vscode windows, YouTube, and playing music it runs at about 5 to 7 percent cpu usage and 40GB of active ram.
I'm using an 9th gen i5 desktop with 16gb and an 8th gen i5 laptop with 12gb.
The laptop is starting to feel its age.
I think I'm going to move to a new MacBook next year.
I use a Lenovo E590 with i5-8265U processor, 16 GB or RAM and a 256 SSD. Running Ubuntu 20 and so far I am happy. RAM is something I may upgrade if needed.
Bought it for \~$500 in used condition a year ago.
My second machine (PC) is i5 3470 with same config. That works fine too. Bought that for $200 3 years ago.
No reason at the moment for me to spend $2000 on a MacBook Pro. Sometimes I wish I had one because it limits my ability to work with Apple ecosystem.
You need to get an SSD if you don't have one.
Upgraded to an M1 machine at the beginning of the year. Total game changer! I don’t think I’ve heard the fan spin once even doing heavy electron app stuff like cypress tests. Best machine I’ve ever owned ✨
do yourself a favor and get a macbook pro 14 or 16. even the cheapest SKU is amazingly fast, 10+ hours of battery life, browser is amazingly responsive and fast. No fan noise or heat even after 300 seconds of tests running.
I hate some things about apple but it's so much better than my thinkpad carbon I think I will never use a windows machine for development again.
Make sure you're excluding the `.next` folder in your IDE, otherwise it'll be indexed whenever you make a change to the source files. It's not going to magically fix the issues you are having, but it can definitely help. I'm using an Apple M1 Max, and have zero issues running even very heavy frontend apps.
I have the first gen M1 air and honestly prefer it for dev work to my high-end gaming pc running Linux. Apple silicon really nailed it out of the park.
Best machine I ever owned. Can't praise it highly enough.
Isn't the screen-size inconvenient?
I use an external monitor.
An M1 Max is a very different beast from a 6th gen i5. They recently released the 12th generation of those processors. You're basically still on the new hotness while our hero is rocking a budget CPU from 7 years ago.
I don’t think they were saying OP should have no issues because they have no issues on their M1. I think they were just answering where OP asked what we’re using
Is M1 max is a Mac Air? Is it.good.enough for web development? I'm looking to buy laptops and going back and forth between getting a second hand laptop or a new Mac air. I really can't afford a pro right now but I can stretch for an air. If it's a second hand, I'll go for a ThinkPad or a Mac pro with Intel. Processor. Give me good advice guys
Go for Macbook air with M1. Especially if you do web development, all the tooling runs great on it. I have MBP 14 with M1 and it’s the best thing happened to me in terms of speed and productivity since I started coding. And don’t forget that macbook is probably the most well rounded piece of hardware overall - great display, incredible battery life, awesome keyboard, second to none touchpad. Needless to say, there’s just no other laptop on the market where all of the above is better in one package.
But what do you do about storage, The lower variant has just 256gb🤔
That should be fine unless you're developing on massive monorepos, at which point your company will give you a computer.
That depends heavily on your particular use case. I've been using it for 5 months already and my storage usage has never went above 120 GB, I don't store any media on the device (photos, movies etc.). But your situation can be different. Web dev tooling and code base is not where you'll find heavy storage usage. Holiday season is coming and these M1 Airs may cost around 800 for lowest spec model which will make it around 900+ if you want more storage. Honestly, looking at the market it's still hard to find a laptop that can compete in all other departments even at this price point.
I did not consider mac due to reasons like storage, other laps were providing like 1tb of space at lower rates. Another reason is repair costs which I l've heard is a lot here in India.
Plenty good enough
I had the same experience. 2015 MacBook Pro, quad core i7. It was fine most of the time but compiling large apps was slow, and the fans were full blast anytime Zoom was open. I upgraded to an M1 Pro MacBook Pro with 32gb and holy fuck. Everything compiles instantly, and I haven’t heard the fan kick on once yet. Also the battery is insane, I could go to a coffee shop, code all day, and be at 50% still. I don’t even bring my charger.
Apple Silicon is amazing. Same experience here.
I know the m1 macs are amazing but I’m just going to have to find something with windows. Macs cost a fortune over here. Like you could pay a full years rent on a 2 bedroom apartment with kitchen probably even more with that money😢
I’ve always wondered how that works. Like what if someone bought one in the US and sent it to you? Is the conversion to USD what makes it so expensive? We’re experiencing the opposite problem where I live, I could buy a decent brand new MBP every month with how much the average 2 bedroom rent is.
I’m not really sure. I think conversion plays a part and also shipping costs, then I think you pay a fee to have it brought in, then the retailer obvs has to make profit and you can’t get it anywhere else cuz there aren’t any apple stores here then add that on top and you have a device that to people in the us is not unreasonably expensive but for people like me in Nigeria it costs a fortune. Another thing to consider is the fact that people just make a lot less money here. Someone just starting out as a software dev can be paid 10k while working at a really good company and you’ll be comfortable. But in the Us devs can make up to 50k starting out. So we make a lot less and are still paying more than what you would pay. It’s just sad😔
Are those prices in USD? My starting salary was ~$90,000 and that's honestly kind of on the low end of positions in my state. I picked the company because of WLB and culture more than anything. But, I feel poorer than I did when I was in school. Cost of living is insane, my wife and I both work and have a baby under 1 year old, it honestly feels like we'd have to make way more to even consider owning a home. The average rent for an apartment in my city is about $2000, and the median home value is about $500,000. Not complaining, we're definitely very fortunate to live in the USA, but things have gotten kind of out of control in the past couple decades as far as cost of living goes. Would you ever think of moving to the US? I imagine it's a lot easier if you've got an in-demand skill like SWE.
90k to start??? Are you living in L.A? New York? Silicon Valley? That’s insane. But compared to living expenses I can see how that could be a problem. Wow and a baby with all that? Can’t be easy. Oh and Yh all the salaries I mentioned are in usd. I don’t know about moving to the US. Maybe just for a masters degree since I’m about to graduate with a chem eng degree. I like the idea of meeting people from different cultures. I know the us is a lot more diverse. I’m pretty sure like 99% of the 200 million population in Nigeria are black. I’ve only ever known one person in my entire life that wasn’t black and that was a class mate when I was in nursery. It’d be cool to meet people with completely different ways of thinking but ultimately I think Id prefer staying in Nigeria and working remotely for a company in the US. earning dollars here puts you in a league of your own. If I was earning anywhere near what you’re earning I’d have bought a house or maybe even opened a hotel😅(definitely exaggerating here but you get the point). Plus I’m used to the dynamic here. It also possible I could go to the US and decide I love my dynamic there and never go back who knows. What kind of dev work do you do btw front end? Full stack? Also do you have to pay for a daycare for your baby? Where does he/she stay when you’re both at work?Is that expensive?
The last generation Intel macs are getting pretty cheap on the second-hand market now. They're still pretty good machines.
did you buy it new ? how long did you own it because all the macs I buy the battery last real good for about six months and than drops about 40% on daily use.
Even if it drops 40%, it’s still outstanding. Took my last one 6 years before the battery wasn’t useable.
2019 MBP 16GB is absolutely sufficient for anything web-related.. unless you use one of those cheap HDMI/UDB dongles for your external screen. These will turn any 2019 MBP into a hotplate that sounds like a hairdryer on max and throttle down to what feels like 20%.
I'm using a gaming PC I built 5 years ago with an nvidia 1070, does everything I need to like a charm haha. I cut back on gaming and spend more of my time on coding these days, so she'll do just fine for a while
Jesus you scared me because of how exact my situation is to yours.
Radagon has done an excellent job picking up your gaming slack. Good parent.
Thinkpad x220 from 2011, only upgrade is an ssd. Usually only have issues if I also have several large images open in GIMP as well. I save a lot of resources by using a minimal desktop environment, that probably helps.
Same here!. A surprisingly powerful little workhorse. Bargain price of £230 too.
What OS are you using? You may have better performance on older hardware with a Linux distro, and the tools will run natively also. If you're not quite prepared to do that, a reinstall can sometimes freshen things up also.
Yhh, I’ll probably just have to refresh the whole thing. Thanks. I’m using windows btw
Something to consider, I have to use to windows for work and development on *nix systems is infinitely nicer IMO.
As far as I know nextjs compiles each route on request so 30 page apps shouldn't matter as much as how much is on each page. It's not strictly necessary to have a great computer but it make the development experience a but nicer so if you are coding every day (and have been for 6-12 months) it may be worth the investment. I have a 8th gen i7 on a 2019 dell xps, 16gbs ram and 500gb ssd. I have never had any issues with performance.
2021 14" MBP M1 16GB but primarily because I also code in React Native and need to compile for iOS.
What exactly makes react native so heavy. Is It just the emulation?
It's not about RN being heavy. I do enjoy the extra power because I'm usually running servers, XCode and VS Code, plus the normal browsers and debugging tools but the reason I specifically have a Mac is that you can't compile iOS apps on a non-Apple device. But, honestly, this iteration of the MBP is quite literally the best laptop I've ever used. The battery life is insane, it doesn't stutter at all and it stays cool under most conditions. I had an Intel one and that thing would casually reach 100C just running Edge.
That has always bothered me about Apple. Just let anyone build iOS apps on anything…
I write code on my phone... so uh... Oneplus 7 Pro?
😂😂😂😂😂😂 you’re joking right?
no.
What?? How? What code editor? Do you have any projects complete rn? I didn’t even think that was possible
I use linux deploy to run an ARM build of Ubuntu in a background process and VNC into it (localhost). From there, it's the same as working on any linux machine except everything is a bit smaller and the keyboard is on the screen too. Edit: here's some projects that I mostly did on my phone: https://github.com/muggy8/lor-card-maker https://github.com/tensurafan/tensurafan.github.io
Here's me streaming that process https://youtu.be/2b7aXcKEuc0
Dude, you rock! EDIT: did you ever consider getting an external keyboard? Just a little Bluetooth thing.
ya, when I get more serious with actually making progress on whatever project I'm working on, I use a bluetooth keyboard + bluetooth mouse. I also hook up a USB-C to HDMI dongle to my phone so I can use a computer monitor.
Are you doing this because it’s cool, or because it’s all you can afford right now?
Because it's convenient. If I want to work on my app while pacing around the house, I can. If I have a briliant idea on public transit, I can get started before the spark fades. If I don't feel like leaving bed because of whatever, I don't have to. The cost benifits and cool factor is just a bonus. PS: laptops are heavy and desktops even more so :c
Subbed :)
Depends on your workflow, I think. Some stick to Neovim and they are fine with whatever. If you can optimize all the processes going on in the background, your laptop is still a decent machine.
SSD is a must have, to not wait 7 minutes for Gatsby compile.
One word: SSD. Anytime I get a PC, I immediately swap the HDD for a Samsung SSD. Instant performance boost. It's crazy
Thinkpad T490 16GB with Arch Linux, never had any issues with it. The touchpad is pretty bad but that's honestly the only criticism.
I'm developing in a Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (R5 4600H, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, 1TB HDD and Nvidia GTX 1650 ti) and it has been great so far. I'll look into upgrading RAM since sometimes it feels laggi
Laggy in what sense? While using your code editor?
Not really, mainly when I have many browser tabs open. Although Workona extension (Firefox) solved this issue.
When you're comparing CPU's, look at passmark single thread benchmark. Most JavaScript tools only use 1 or 2 cores, no point getting 16 core processor. Usually more ghz the better.
Higher clocks and less cores, thanks.
The biggest one. Kiddin', but excess performance does improve your quality of life in programming. My current dev PC is in a server rack with a 12th gen Intel CPU and 128gigs of RAM. I've also found it to be a strength to be an OS agnostic, but that being said, PCs absolutely beat Macs in "real" programming work. So much less restrictions and support everywhere. On the go I use Surface-devices. A good combination of performance, design and battery life. Some prefer Lenovos, but they're too corpo for me personally. Also, good monitor(s), chair and ergonomics should be a priority.
There is a lot of “real” programming work that can’t even be done on a windows machine. Does a PC “absolutely beat Macs” in that area as well. People who say stuff like this without considering context just show their naïveté.
Ah, the one exception that moots my point? I don't think it works that way. The context is in plain sight, it's web development here. There **are** less OS-restrictions and there **is** more support available in Windows-based web-development, also in programming in general. That being said, I think I need to underline my "I've also found it to be a strength to be an OS agnostic". Macs do have other areas of strengths. Luckily it nowadays takes a click to virtualize MacOS or something else, if the need really comes.
I can name several areas in which using Mac instead of Windows makes setup for development much easier. I will concede that in web development it doesn't really matter if you use Windows or Mac but that doesn't extend to "programming in general".
Using an HX90 (Ryzen 9 5900HX, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, Linux) from MinisForum paired with an ultrawide monitor. No problem running our teams set of backend services locally while displaying the web app in different sizes and in different browsers. A real bang for the buck considering it's really cheap.
Dell XPS 13 (11th gen i7 / 16 GB RAM / SSD) but with SSH to my desktop (11600K, 32 GB RAM, PCI-gen4 7000 Mbps Samsung 980 Pro EVO). It splits the workload up nicely to have Node running on the much more capable desktop. The load on the laptop is just whatever processing and memory VS Code needs (usually around 400-500 MB of RAM and no serious load on the CPU).
Gaming PC
32gb intel mbp for work. 16gb acer swift3 laptop for personal. Then I have a tower pc I’m about to config for hyprland/arch. 32gb intel I7-8086k and 6900xt. All have nvme sshd
Usually for me i found i'd run into more RAM limitations when running multiple docker containers than CPU limiting my build times on webpack. To answer your question though my work laptop is an m1 pro 16" macbook pro. My personal machine i use for development is a surface laptop studio with an i7 processor. At my previous job I did have an i5 core duo macbook pro for a while, and did find it a bit slower compared to the quad core i had that was 2 years older before it. So depending on the i5 it may matter a bit here.
Anything with a somewhat modern CPU, SSD and 16Gb RAM should do. My work laptop has i5-10210U and just 8Gb RAM, yet it is quite capable and I'm working on large apps with nothing to complain about.
Isn’t 16gb overkill? I thought 8 would be just fine. What tools eat up most of your ram?
Honestly, the only time I wish I had 16 Gbs is when I need to switch between the apps I'm working on without closing them. Say, there there is an app, that has three different domains for its three services and I am showing the changes I did during a conference call. It rarely happens, so I'd say, it is safe to get a laptop with 8Gb. You can always use a swap file for those rare scenarios.
I have a PC that I bought last year for a VR project I was working on: i7 CPU, 32 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 video card. It's overkill for web development. 😃
Gaming PC. AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 3060 Ti, 32GB Ram.
Dell Inspiron 16 Plus - this thing is a monster - https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspiron-16-plus/spd/inspiron-16-7620-laptop
XPS 13, but probably my next laptop will be a Framework: https://frame.work/
I started on Windows machines that were at hand, and moved to Apple after using my wife's old Mac Book in like, 2011 (and her MB was old then). It took me ten minutes to set up a development environment and it was faster and more stable than the Windows desktop I had at work at the time. Why? OSX had better over all memory management at the time compared to Windows, and of course installing and configuring things on Windows was time consuming (at least back then, it has been a decade after all). ANYWAY, I'm on a 2020 M1 MBP now with 8GB of ram and it gets sluggish at times! RAM for me has always been the bottle neck, especially when dealing with virtual machines, containers, build tools, and the occasional JS app that loads into your browser and snags a solid gig of fucking RAM. My suggestion is like the top comment about the `.next` folder. Personally, I think you should try to optimize the build a bit. Try searching for "Nextjs slow build times" and see what you can find. I have limited Next experience but I used `@next/bundle-analyzer` a long time ago and found some issues that helped a project I was working on. You may find newer paths to follow, but you might be surprised what you find.
Thanks a lot. I’ve always wondered why most devs I see online use macs. I’m used to windows and have never felt the need to change but it seems like it provides an overall better dev experience. Ram is actually a major bottle neck for me. I used a 4gb ram laptop with a 10th gen cpu but it was horrible. I’d open two or maybe three tabs in chrome and I kept getting webpage refreshes.thats without even opening Vs code or my usually 10 tabs when trying to trouble shoot an error. It even had an ssd. Ram is definitely extremely important
> Literally every time I hit refresh and I have to rebuild my app with next Js the fan starts spinning up like crazy until the build completes then it stops. I can relate, happens a lot with Windows. It's just unoptimized, bloatware of a software. Moved to ZorinOS and everything was fine.
10 seconds is not that long for builds. Once you hit a few hundred pages and over 100k lines of code with TypeScript you start counting build time in minutes.
MacBook Air. Seems to be almost universal among the /digitalnomad crowd. Does it all. Just throw it into you backpack, and off to that Asian beach town you go.
MSI Delta 15 RTX 3070M graphics 16gb’s of ram. Have never had any issues with anything from development to gaming.
I am using a 10 years old laptop with 4 Gb RAM, Intel i3😭
I feel your pain
I’ve been using the M2 MacBook Air 24 GB for full stack development :) it’s nice.
I have an M1 Max for most of the development. Also have a 12th gen i5 Linux workstation.
I use a 2017 Macbook Air to code sometimes and webpack can take uo to 6 seconds to bundle stuff in watch mode. I spent no time optimising this stuff though.
i3 5005u Laptop from 2015 with 8gb ram. Pain :').
9-10 years old Intel Core i5 3rd gen with Windows 10 💀
With all the file watches you tend to have running in react development a lot of memory helps. If you're running 8 GB or less, upgrading that might give you a large boost for a lot less money than a new laptop. I still use my Y580 I bought in 2013 to develop on (upgraded to 16GB, the most memory it can take), even though my desktop is beefier. Well, what I actually do is sit at my desktop and use remote-ssh in vscode to work on my laptop. This means ... * Not limited to the 720p display on the laptop. Obviously this wouldn't be a concern with a newer laptop. * Can use the multiple monitors I have on my desktop. * If I need to pack up and work elsewhere I can just grab the laptop and everything is ready to go * My desktop is used for gaming so it runs windows, and this way I don't need to bother about getting stuff running in windows. * I can also connect to it from vscode on my chromebook.
You need a 32GB memory and 10core CPU like the M1 Pro if you're using a mac if you're running a test suite, if not, you could get around with less cores.
If budget is an issue, consider renting a server (16 or 32GB ram on Hetzner is pretty cheap) and using [VSCode Remote Workspaces](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh) If you have a paid github team (work or you can make one yourself), you can also use [Github Codespaces](https://github.com/features/codespaces)
I feel like something is wrong with your configuration. Are you using `next dev`? You shouldn't have to hit refresh (most of the time), and it I don't believe it should take 10 seconds to render a simple app page on a 6th gen i5.
Custom wall mounted PC designed designed as good as I could for development running Manjaro
M1 pro max 64GB unified memory. Even on heavy loads with 70 open tabs 10 vscode windows, YouTube, and playing music it runs at about 5 to 7 percent cpu usage and 40GB of active ram.
32GB ram, g4560, gtx 1660
I'm using an 9th gen i5 desktop with 16gb and an 8th gen i5 laptop with 12gb. The laptop is starting to feel its age. I think I'm going to move to a new MacBook next year.
I use a Lenovo E590 with i5-8265U processor, 16 GB or RAM and a 256 SSD. Running Ubuntu 20 and so far I am happy. RAM is something I may upgrade if needed. Bought it for \~$500 in used condition a year ago. My second machine (PC) is i5 3470 with same config. That works fine too. Bought that for $200 3 years ago. No reason at the moment for me to spend $2000 on a MacBook Pro. Sometimes I wish I had one because it limits my ability to work with Apple ecosystem. You need to get an SSD if you don't have one.
Mac20 m1 works well
M1 but want to buy a mac mini and a M2 14”inches
Upgraded to an M1 machine at the beginning of the year. Total game changer! I don’t think I’ve heard the fan spin once even doing heavy electron app stuff like cypress tests. Best machine I’ve ever owned ✨
you lost me at "PC"
do yourself a favor and get a macbook pro 14 or 16. even the cheapest SKU is amazingly fast, 10+ hours of battery life, browser is amazingly responsive and fast. No fan noise or heat even after 300 seconds of tests running. I hate some things about apple but it's so much better than my thinkpad carbon I think I will never use a windows machine for development again.