Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1996 | Hacker News Reader

1996

I have laptops with 64 and 32Gb of RAM, but I found my best work happens with 8Gb of RAM.

I can't exactly explain how or why, but it seems to enforces discipline by reducing task (and context) switching - so much that I got myself another laptop with 4Gb.

View on HN

This reads like an apple user parody.

I feel there’s some rationale to it. I used to have a lot of sprawling monitors, but I found I’m just much more focused with a single laptop screen and being able to just switch panes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/comments/jrrz46/not_a...

This is serious. A constrained environment helps me focus and think more creatively.

The only think I'll never skimp on is storage. In 2018 I standardized on 2Tb SSDs in raid0.

I'm currently upgrading to 4Tb (as I can't find much larger)

I know exactly what he's talking about as somebody who ran a win7 and Linux VM on a 4gb MBA. I had to be incredibly choosy about what I kept open at any given time or my system would keel over. It enforced discipline that I just didn't have normally which helped keep me organized.

My favourite development machine is still my 9 year old Air with 4GB. I mostly do frontend, a bit of Rails and some of GameDev with C++. It forces me to use lightweight tools (like Sublime) and it works like a charm.

One advantage of having it is that the company I work for has a very international and diverse user base, but gives us developers super modern machines. Some developers tend to overgineer and cause performance issues on slower computers. With an older laptop I can understand better how the app will be perceived by users.

> Some developers tend to overgineer and cause performance issues on slower computers. With an older laptop I can understand better how the app will be perceived by users.

Exactly this. It forces me to optimize instead of taking shortcuts.

But the #1 effect is on focus: I can't have many tabs open and procrastinate.

8Gb is ideal for me. I'll see how it goes with 4Gb.

Offtopic, but same apply to internet usage. Limit your self and you will be more productive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com