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Comment by FirmwareBurner | Hacker News Reader

I think you should specify development of what exactly? Videos? Backend Software? Front end? Firmware? Mobile Apps? Games? 3D assets?

I doubt there isn't already enough information and options online and via HN search about M2 Mac's used for development.

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Mostly backend development in Ruby (most of the time Rails), some frontend for my side projects.

I use Docker with multiple containers running almost all the time. Local PostgreSQL and MySQL.

I use from time to time Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer.

I mostly use now VScode, sometimes Rubymine.

Video calls: Mostly Zoom, some Google Meet, rarely something else.

I do all these on a 24GB M2 Air, have no problem

I did all of that on an M1 MacBook Air and now on a M2 without any problems whatsoever. Only caveat the Airs have is that you can't attach more than one external screen without some workarounds[1]. If you don't rely on that the machine should be more than capable of what you're looking for!

1: https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-o...

I do Rails development (in a docker compose environment) on my MacBook pro with 8 GB of ram without any issues!

Yes. I usually change laptops once every say 6-7 years. This is why four years ago I decided to buy a maxed-out 16" MacBook Pro with 64GB so that it should keep me for at least 8 years or more.

But it seems not to be the case.

I don't see how more ram would extend the lifetime? Isn't there other factors that matter more?

>I don't see how more ram would extend the lifetime? Isn't there other factors that matter more?

Because RAM is the hard cap (if you ignore SWAP) while here's infinite number of CPU cycles. With a slow CPU things will just take a bit longer, but with not enough RAM then that's it, it's game over for your workloads (again if you ignore SWAP which I don't want to rely on, especially on a system where SSD is soldered).

What do you do that eats up 20+ GB ram?

Does it matter why someone else does with their ram?

Maybe I run 20VMs at once or 200 Chrome tabs or 3 electron instances.

You buy as little as you need let others buy how much they need.

I am asking out of curiosity, not to be judgemental.

I just assume web development unless stated otherwise. As an embedded engineer I understand where you’re coming from, but for a lot of people here web is the only thing they know.

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