We live in an incredible age. We all carry the '90s equivalent of supercomputers in our pockets. Computers have never been faster, but it doesn't feel that way, does it? It's not you. The act of computing has been deteriorating in various subtle ways. Note that I don't say computers are getting worse; it's the act of using a computer that's declining.[...]Not too long ago, about 15 years ago when I began my career in web development, most people conducted their computing on workstations — desktop computers with separate monitors, keyboards, and mice. Artists, programmers, designers, video editors, musicians, educational YouTubers, producers, and creators of all kinds relied on these setups. Laptops simply didn't pack enough power for tasks like graphics design, video editing, or handling large programming projects. They were reserved for simpler, portable tasks like browsing the web and writing notes during lectures. The understanding was that serious work often demanded a desktop.Then, a calamity struck the world of computing. Laptops suddenly became just powerful enough to handle nearly every task. If one were to pinpoint a watershed moment, it would likely be the release of Intel Atom in 2008, marking the beginning of the end. Laptop performance and battery life hovered slightly above mediocre. Combined with most applications being offloaded to remote servers accessed via browsers, laptops surged in popularity. Hardware manufacturers swiftly pivoted their focus almost entirely toward this now-preferred form factor.Today, little has changed in the realm of desktops. Workstation machines still eclipse laptops in terms of power. Just ask any PC gamer—the performance disparity remains evident. Desktop performance hasn't stagnated; it has continued to progress. While laptop performance has undeniably increased, we've simply diverted our attention away from it. Both have seen improvements, yet desktops persist in maintaining their enormous lead.With a desktop, you still receive significantly more value for your money. Despite innovations in portable computing power, physics presents a challenge. The miniaturization of components to fit into a sleek, lightweight laptop isn't without compromise. Heat becomes a significant problem in this scenario.[...]
Transcript summary generated with youtubetranscript.com. This transcript was given to ChatGPT 3.5 to fix formatting issues on copy. It also rephrased some sentences for better reading comprehension.
This video seems to explain very well how I feel about desktops vs laptops.
I don't need a powerful portable machine if I can't really make use of the portability. I don't like working with a small keyboard and small screen. So in any case, I always plugged my laptop into the outlet, connected external keyboard and mouse and screen. So for the money that I would pay for a powerful laptop, I could get a nice wireless keyboard + mouse, a good screen and still buy a more powerful machine which only lacks in portability. As long as the mainboard is not too old, this machine will also be easily upgradable in the future.
What is your view on this?
Do you use a laptop or a desktop machine as your daily driver? Why?
Btw, do you even say desktop? Most of the times, these machines don't really sit on top of desks. So if we want to sound intellectually pedantic, we should call them "deskdowns".
Laptop60.6%
Desktop39.4%
33 votes \ poll ended
neovim
to match my existing VSCode workflow. When I got comfortable with developing inneovim
, I should be able to simply SSH into my machine at home and have a native development experience.neovim
on the machine I SSH'd into. I didn't test this though, so maybe this is a wrong assumption.neovim
as a even better version ofvim
since I really likevim
.neovim
is an amazing editor but it's hard to use due to it's modal nature,helix
is the same but it reverse the actions, that means you can "see" what you act on before doing so.ciw
, but in helix you firstw
and on the active selection do thec
so it's much more visual.helix
to beginners to modal editing, you can then switch toneovim
later or simply stay withhelix
, an editor is a personal choice.