Computers, phones, tablets, etc.
How many of them do you use to develop software?
Ben Halpern
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How many computer devices do you own?
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Discussion (115)
All I can recall right now.
How may of these do you use regularly?
All of them. I have a lack of required devices.
I don't like having to carry my computer to various rooms
and so I have them set up around the house.
Some have specializations but mostly its and redundancy and convenience.
I have a lack of charges. Wiener dogs have chewed through a few.
Awesome! This is a life I could definitely live. I'd also read a post on some of the details of managing your config across devices, your cloud, etc.
Ruby did the same with one of mine recently, but how can I stay mad at that face?
I run my dev environments in Cloud9.
I store most files shared on my network to my Hackintosh
which has terabytes of storage.
I make great use of Google Drive
I have paid version of Dashlane.
Nice.
Do you just have a single dev environment in Cloud9? Or multiple? Iβd be interested to hear the details of your setup, since Iβm imagining you push as much state to the cloud as possible, so that this multi machine setup is seamless π
Also, are you using all of these machines for work? Or a mix of work and personal?
I have a Cloud9 environment for each project.
Cloud9 has limitations which are unfortunate.
I wish I could use Cloud9 with CloudFormation to provision tens of servers at once for the purpose of teaching but it's not possible as AWS has heavily neglected Cloud9 automation where you can only automate the creation of Amazon Linux Cloud9 environment with no way of running a script afterwards. Amazon Liunx has problems and so I can't even automate that step having to manually use the console to spin up Ubuntu environments.
Every intern and dev at ExamPro has a Cloud9 environment and it saves us so much time.
No worries having to figure out docker, no full days lots because your dev environment broke.
We wrote a bash script which setups the dev environment. It has to manually run, but at least it's only 1 action.
I have Cloud9 env for every project that I work on. Since servers only run when you use them I'm not too worried about multiple instances running at the same time.
I'm seeing more IDE services spin up but I can't justify the subscription costs where Cloud9 is so inexpensive. If one of these IDEs can match the same functionality as Cloud9 I would strongly consider architecting my only solution so I can automate setting or rebuilding environments
We attempted to connect Cloud9 to ECS but it simply was not possible.
The Fire Tablet has been a real star. Very inexpensive relative to an iPad (I bought mine on Prime Day) and it fulfills my basic needs of reading and video for traveling.
My SO is wearing her Fire Tablet into the ground. Was really hoping for USB-C on the new model so it wouldn't be the only non-USB-C device in our house π
I just use a cluster of Raspberry Pis. π
In all seriousness, I use the following regularly for coding in this order:
Hackintosh :O It's still a thing, I can't believe I forgot about them. I had one back in college while there was no way I could afford an actual Mac. I'd love to build one again though, from scratch with all the right components. Just seeing your boxes makes me want to assemble one. I think I have a new (old?) hobby.
My last Hackintosh was built several years ago, I've been meaning to do one again as well! Except I've been looking for a good laptop that can be made into a hackintosh... no luck there yet... :/
I've cut way way back, but it's still a little out of control.
If we're counting my partner's gear as well, it gets really nuts.
MacBook Pro. Thatβs it for 99% of the time.
I also have an iPhone, but use it mostly for reading these very articles in the morning, the rest of the day I tuck it away into a drawer because all the chit chat from messages is really distracting.
And I have a Kindle chock full of books and guides that I use as reference sometimes.
I try to use most of them for testing and debugged at least.
Old, pretty shitty Dell Laptop running Windows 10 (only use it for Adobe products).
Old, slightly less shitty HP Desktop running Ubuntu (main Dev machine).
Old, very shitty iPad 2(?) (reading things on the toilet).
Old, very shitty Galaxy S5 (occasionally testing mobile).
I need some new hardware. π
Right now a MacBook Pro mid2015, iPhone 7, iPad 2018, Apple Watch Series 4 and I just bought a 2019 iMac. I only use the MBP and iMac for development, though I sometimes read dev books on my iPad, if that counts!
How's the new iMac? I have one from 2017 and love it, but I'm looking to upgrade as I got the minimum specs.
Just saw this! I don't have another iMac to compare but it's been a HUGE performance difference from my MBP, mainly because the processor in my MBP is a dual core and I got the 9th generation i5 (which has 6 cores) on the iMac. I suppose that if you have the minimum specs and you're looking for an upgrade it'll probably be a good buy since you can upgrade the RAM yourself and save a loooot of money.
I've seen some people include some other devices, so here we go:
~~ Development ~~
2015 13" MacBook Pro
2018 Mac mini
2019 iPad mini
iPhone X
2nd-Gen iPad Pro - I don't use this as often since getting the iPad mini
For gaming, I use a custom built PC. And a Nintendo Switch.
I used to own a whole bunch more, but I'll say they all belong to my kids now.
Good question... :thinking_face:
A gaming PC, an Asus laptop, my Google Pixel 1, and several gaming consoles.
Both my gaming desktop and laptop for development, however, my laptop doesn't have a lot of space, so I can only develop one project at a time on it. I bought my laptop to work on group projects with my friends at various locations.
Dell XPS 15 ... If I am sitting at this computer I am writing software, period. Usually in the Linux subsystem and VSCode. Sometimes I plug it in to my desktopβs 4k screens on the standing desk. Usually using an ErgoDox keyboard when it isnβt on my lap.
iPad Pro 12.9 2018 for all media consumption related to code/work (twitter, blogs, tutorials, email, slack, etc), but rarely anything personal and I have separate dev accounts for social media and personal stuff. Turns out I can type really fast on this thingβs on screen keyboard :)
Pixel3 XL for all time wasting and personal stuff, but with digital wellbeing on to limit how much time I actually waste. Also streams music to my headphones and for calls, but notifications are turned off for all apps (soooo nice)
Kindle Voyage exclusively for learning and kept in my βworkβ backpack. Even the kindle app on the iPad is too distracting for me
Kindle paper white for entertainment reading
And a monster desktop gaming rig, really just used for Factorio these days :)
My daily drivers include:
And there's all the old gear that's destined for the dustbin of time:
wow
2 laptops, 2 phones, 1 smart (enough) watch
I've done work on all of those, though the S7 and iPad Mini have mostly been used for writing and taking notes rather than actual coding (I tried on the iPad once, it wasn't great).
MacBook Air 2017 and Xiaomi Redmi Pro (planning to buy Huawei P30 Lite). I also have Microsoft Lumia 535 which I haven't touched for 2 years or more. I also have MacBook Pro Mid-2010 which I used for two years; now I'm using 500GB SSD storage I got with it on my new MacBook.
Just my Mid 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro, the last model with USB ports and MagSafe adapter. I use it for everything and I'll probably keep using it for everything until it dies, just like the last one :D
Oh and iPhone 5c, I'd keep this one forever but I can't update iOS on it anymore so it's becoming a problem.
I mostly work with my PC, if I have to move to other place I use mac book, or maybe just when need to use something on bed. The tablet is just for watching videos, and the dell laptop is used by my father sometimes, but were with me all college.
= Microsoft Surface (Used to draw on it), main development computer
= iPhone 5something, nope
= iMac, backup development computer (rarely turned on)
= Old very expensive tablet PC before they became a mainstream thing (gathering dust in a drawer but still works!)
= A relic, a tiny netbook. Doesn't run new enough software to develop, but I wish they made them again!! They're so cute and portable!
I use all my devices except for my pixel 2, but I mainly use my big desktop tower and the macbook pro provided by the company I work for.
I usually use my MacBook with a decent 1080p external monitor. I bring it every few days for (high) school because the Chromebooks are garbage or if we have cs club and hackathons. I use my Pi for some cool concepts on automation or network penetration based hacking which is booted in Kali Linux. The old HP computer is a computer obtained from my dad's office which didn't want it, so I took and booted a very cool Linux Distro called Zorn OS (it's like if Mac OS and Windows had a baby). I bearly use that computer cause its hella old, the battery is nonexistent and it's pretty slow and the display is awful (like blue === purple).
active use - owned personally
Macbook pro 2014
main work laptop, refuse to upgrade to "new" macbook pro. Probably planning a linux replacement this year.
Intel i7-4770, 32 GB ram, gtx 1080
"gaming" PC - a real waste, considering how rarely I end up gaming the past few years, and the type of games I play, like factorial, =x
Used in random benchmarks like
Javascript Array.push is 945x faster than Array.concat π€―π€
Shi Ling γ» 8 min read
3U Server : E5-2660 xeon (x2), 256 GB ram, lots of storage
Personal storage archive, and used as a personal experimental platform for many things server/infrastructure related.
Increasingly being used as a "remote dev" server, as part of my long term plan to drop my macbook pro. And get a "dumb client" - making all my changes via SSH (or something else)
Samsung S8
Primary communication phone. My general phone replacement policy is still its death, so about 2 more years i guess?
iPad mini (2015??)
Tablet for entertainment and mobile games, and general surfing of web.
inactive use
TL;DR Several; Mostly one.
Does that PC with removed GPU counts? What about that Raspberry PI. And the other one without an SD card (that I'll definitely use for that project I had in mind 5 years ago!) There's my PS3, Vita, and PS4. Technically the Samsung TV is a computer device. So is the Android TV dongle. Should I count the old Motorola with a cracked screen and the iPhone that doesn't charge anymore but one day might if I bother to change the battery? Or my Canon EOS with a custom ROM that can play mini games?
Related question: how many digital camera sensors (CCD or CMOS) do you have in your household?
I remember the day I got my first webcam. A digital camera! It could capture the picture (240p or so), and you didn't have to bring the film to the store and wait a day or two for them to print your pics (just so you can realize you didn't exactly match the camera settings with the film ISO so they all ended up too dark, but that's another story.)
Now your phone has at least 3 cameras.
Laptop PC and phone. So phone is only for communication and such stuff but PC is for job related stuff both my girls and mine while she has her own laptop I have mine and use GNU/Linux on it. PC is powerhouse for Adobe stuff for her and WSL for me- development(java scala node php c#). Laptop has same except for C#
I used to use the Macbook Pro, until mid 2018 when I was able to switch over to a dedicated in-office work laptop (Macbook Pro 2018).
Now, I've simplified my environment on my new System76 laptop.
My PC is pretty much just for games, and the occasional illustration project.
I used to use my Android tablet and iPad 2 (not sure where that is) for Frontend work, but now they're gathering dust.
I also have a Raspberry Pi in a random drawer that gets pulled out at least once a year for some random small project to satisfy an itch.
Wow just realized too many, I should sell some :)
Surface Pro 2, 4, 5
Surface Go
Macbook air
2 HP Windows mini Tablet 7 inches
1 Windows Tablet 8 inches
Lenovo yoga tablet 10 inche
Samsung Windows Tablet
PC Acer Intel Core 7 15 inch
2 Asus Notebooks
Ipad Pro 12 inches, Ipad mini, Ipad 2
Samsung Android Tablet 12 inches
Samsung Android Tablet 7 inches
Iphone 6, Iphone 6s
Huawei Android Phone
I don't want to even count other devices :)
Active use:
Own:
I try to keep my devices as long as possible to reduce my impact on environment.
Using Linux and LineageOS helps a lot for that.
Oh boy, that's gonna be a long list:
Custom built PC 1 (9900k, 2070RTX) - This is what I do 90% of my non-coding work on.
Custom built PC 2 (4790k, 970GTX) - This is what I do none of my anything on. It's just sort of there for when someone wants to work on a PC and mine's taken.
Huawei MateBook 13 - My baby. This is what I do all my coding on.
OnePlus 6t - Main phone
Huawei p20 lite - Android test phone
iPad Pro 13" - iOS test device + drawing device for when I do architecture/conceptual work
Besides a few smart TVs, that's really it!
That's about it. I rally hate having too much stuff so I keep it pretty simple
DELL laptop (2 of them)
macbook-air
486DX2
Pentium core2-duo PC
i5 PC
iPad
iphone
google home mini
Raspberry Pi 2B (2 of them)
Asus tablet
and then there's my wife's laptop, daughter's laptop and 3 more phones which, technically, I own... ;-)
ohhh, do Arduinos count? I have ~5 of them...
For development: 2 DELL laptops and the macbook, and one raspberry pi (rarely).
Lots of macbooks collecting dust bellow.
The answer is 8
Since I am working from home all the time, macbook is rarely opened :) Really happy with the desktop, in few months it will be a year since I am using it and I can't imagine myself going back to mac & macos. Having 16 cores, 32GB RAM and Intel Optane SSD allows you to actually never think about resources and you never have to wait for computer to do something. On my mac it was a different case, quite difficult to develop on the same machine where Kubernetes is running :D
I have a laptop, two phones (a slightly nicer phone that is my actual phone and a cheaper one that I used to use as my main phone but is now just for podcasts), a chromebook, and a kindle fire.
I pretty much only use my laptop but occasionally I use my chromebook though it has a lot of limitations.
1) My old Dell Inspiron 1525, bought back in 2008 and still working. It is the hardware that saves me when the other fail
2) A Lenovo whose model I don't remember, and that whas a really good looking laptop. Unfortunately, something got broken and it only works when it is plugged. So It is not very useful
3) A Compaq Presario. I bought it when the # 2 broke and it served two good years despite it was a little weird... Bought it as new but Compaq Brand was discontinued...
4) A Dell Vostro, good piece of hardware, this is my current work machine
5) A Lenovo 120s, with Lubuntu. This is my baby, I use it everyday because this is my main gate to experiment with Linux
6) A Compaq Mini. This was an old netbook, last year I updated the hardware with more RAM and an SSD and then installed Lubuntu there. This was my first experience with Lubuntu and since I liked, I bought the # 5
7) A CPU that works as my bussiness server. There is the billing software I use it on RDP
8) A CPU that works as a testing computer for my team. I use it on RDP
9) An old tablet plugged to my old TV in order to simulate a smart TV
10) A Sony tablet. It was a gift from my mother. It's a very good device but I hardly use it
All my computers are related to development in some way or another:
As for phones:
Used regularly:
Not used regularly:
I use the desktop and laptop regularly. The phone with a plan is my daily driver and I also use it to test websites. The tablets I use occasionally. The RPi is running Google Assistant, and the Google Home Mini is in the living room.
Develop on:
If counting devices that help in development:
And my phone (Xiaomi Mi A2) and that's pretty much it. Back in my high-school/college days I always had a number of old computers around to tinker with but now I like to keep things simple: one good ready-for-work PC and I'm all set.
daily use
Iphone SE
2014 Macbook pro
Google Home mini
no longer used much
Old plastic macbook, not even sure what model it is anymore
iPod shuffle (2nd gen)
I have listen great things about iphone SE, how is it serving you?
I was hesitant of moving to iOS ecosystem but wanted a pocket-sized phone. Gave SE a try exactly two years ago and it is still going strong. Battery drains a bit faster now, although I still feel I can use this for one more year before upgrading.
I love the small form factor, and it's a decent phone for my needs.