Not long about I accidentally ruined the keyboard on my oldish white macbook, I debated spending cash I really didn't need to spend on a nice new macbook air. But after giving it some good thought I decided to just go ahead and replace the topcase myself.<p>While deciding this I realized it's rather a shame that in our hacker culture there's still somewhat of a fetishism for having a sleek new laptop, and that it would be much better if the culture valued the patched together, upgraded and heavily worn.<p>There are many great reasons for this: cut down on consumer waste, more in-tune with the hacker ideal to squeeze the most out of what you have in front of you, interesting performances issues aren't solved with a simple hardware upgrade, and of course Zed's point that we remain more in-touch with what actual users are using.<p>It shouldn't a point of shame to have the latest and the greatest, but it would be nice more cred went to the hacker in the room with the oldest, most beatup, but still productive laptop
I'm on a similar course - the further I dive into systems, the more I learn to use the ubiquitous software (vi, for example) rather than being picky about my tools and environment.<p>People with very complex environments make me think they spent far too long developing a theoretical methodology, and too little time actually hacking and using stuff.
Everyone I see in these kind of articles uses old hardware and small screens. I feel like it is selection bias - it makes for a better story when the rock stars don't use the best tools.<p>When I moved from an old Mac to a tricked out iMac, my apps compiled 10x as fast. I suppose it's nice to know you can write good software on any box, but it's worthwhile to have good tools for something you spend many hours on each day.
This is a good contrast to this recent front-page HN story:
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3075145" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3075145</a><p>"If you're a developer, you need to spend money on a great computer, an awesome monitor, a fantastic chair and a good bed"<p>Personally, I think Zed's approach is far more responsible/sane. If you "need to spend money on a great computer", you are either doing something very different than me, or very wrong.
I agree hardware is no big deal for development in general. I tend to buy one generation behind in term of hardware. Not only all the bugs have been work out but I also got great bargains. Initial depreciation is steep for technology related products.
I have always been dismayed with us techies and our toys. Like women and their purses. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But its nice to know there are great programmers out there who don't care about that stuff.<p>But geesh, even I would upgrade from a white Macbook, and I am using a 2006 MBP.
old hardware might work for him, but not for me. I dont want to wait for my pc, and if i can noticably improve speed with a SSD, a better CPU or more RAM i do so. Whats wrong with wanting fast hardware? I spend 8-12 hours each day in front of these things, so if i can upgrade stuff to make my job easier i do so.
I thought it was a bit odd that he wrote 7 paragraphs about music equipment and software, but didn't mention which GNU/Linux distribution(s) he uses on his "junky" laptops.