skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This seems like a combination of trolling for page-views and begging the question of whether your personal tastes are universally shared.

Nobody has even used the touch bar yet so we don't know how well the escape + function key mode works for the average developer, or how often the wins of other features (e.g. the dedicated “man page” button shown in the screenshots, the kinds of context-sensitive things something like a debugger, browser dev tools, etc. could do, etc.) would balance out the lost of a physical key.

There's a small mistake in assuming that the quad-core 2.4GHz processor you got in 2010 is exactly the same as the 2016 Skylake version, and I think that masks a much larger question: how many people actually need more CPU or even RAM? Some developers definitely do – if you're working with a 20GB model, there's no alternative – but a large number don't.

For me, most of my development laptop hardware requirements plateaued somewhere around the MacBook Air somewhere around the 2010-12 range because this thing called the cloud happened and most of the work which can't be done on a small laptop with an SSD also isn't a good fit for a slightly larger laptop. Everything else I'd look for are different areas like screen size.
> "The plural of anecdote is not data."

An anecdote is a single data point. So numerous anecdotes would, in fact, be data.
Many common applications that developers use have many keybindings that heavily rely upon the Escape key (Vim for sure).
I'm not outraged, more like disappointed. After no significant update in a very long time we get a touch bar, but still cannot put 32GB of ram in the MB-PRO.
In addition, I'd also point out that the term "nutritionist" doesn't even mean anything is most jurisdictions, as highlighted by the following anecdote:

"A demonstration of the ease in which it is possible to become an accredited nutritionist can be seen in Dr Ben Goldacre's successful application to have his dead cat Hettie accredited as a certified professional member of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants" [1]

I'd typically listen to what a Dietitian has to say about nutrition, but not anyone calling themselves a nutritionist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritionist#Regulation_of_the...
At an early-stage startup, a technical cofounder is responsible for actually developing the product that you envision.

Why does this always feel like the technical guy is going to be shouldering an awful lot of the hard work?
I think you should read that article again.. it actually takes into account sentiment.
Both accounts are throwaways!
From Apple's site:

- USB-C to Thunderbolt 2: $49

- SanDisk SD Card USB-C Reader: $49.95

- USB-C AV Multiport Adaptor (HDMI): $69

Spend another $168 and you access to add the same ports you have now!
True developers used MacBooks?

I was talking to a washed-up developer today who swears by them actually. Every single reason was totally bogus. It went something like this:

Reason 1) "They come with native SSH capabilities"

Me) "Uh, you can just get Putty for windows. It takes 20 seconds."

Reason 2) "MacOS uses the PC's hardware more efficiently"

Me) "Uh, it's because it's a very basic OS and has much less the deal with, i.e less threads to micromanage, so it's not really 'efficiency'. Also, Apple products have very poor hardware specs for the price, so the performance ends up the same if not worse than an equivalent windows machine, even when factoring in poorer hardware utilization efficiency."

Reason 3) "B-but, Photoshop and video-editing software runs better on MacOS."

Me) "No. It doesn't. It really doesn't. What the hell"

Honestly, there is no getting through to them.
Sometimes I've a feeling that some people really like it complicated. Today it is no mysterium to mount a remote machine via SSH and edit all the files using atom/sublime/vs code/... so mostly no need for a terminal editor on a remote server.

And have you ever tried to use a terminal (editor) on remote over a connection with high latency? Awful.
I smash the esc key violently every time I climb myself into a corner with Emacs shortcuts and don't know how to get out.

But it's on a proper mechanical keyboard because prolonged use of builtin keyboards hurts my hands.
I'm testing out a strange setup that is working surprisingly well: I have a beefy desktop: 64GB RAM and 32 cores. Then I carry an Intel Compute Stick, portable laptop and mouse with me. I just plug into any HDMI monitor to do basic work, or RDP/TeamViewer into my desktop for real work. Surprising how well this is working...
Apple has been backing away from power users for years. Ever since they removed dual monitor full screen, imo. My MacBooks don't have Mac OS on them and I'm never buying another one. The premium price used to get you the best product... now it's an accessory.
I'm a vim user. Why in the world did they remove ESC? That's one of my most frequently used keys.

And no, I don't think remapping it is a great idea.

If I had to use this for work I would protest.
Ahah,what about using an actual JVM for embedded hardware, instead of trolling?

If you don't know better I can gladly provide you some links to embedded Java vendors.
I have heard good things about https://system76.com/
If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

To submit a link using the |submit| page, put it in the |url| box and leave the |text| box empty. It is ok to add a comment after the link shows up on the HN |new| page.
Dynamic function keys (are you in insert mode? some functions show up. Normal? different functions)

Also you don't need to remember which key does which
But doing twice as many problems is not the same as drilling. When people say "drilling" in American education, they generally mean doing simple and mechanical problems for speed. For instance, the multiplication drills at some schools involve playing a voice on a CD or mp4 that speaks multiplication problems at a certain rate.

Now, doing many exercises is a different thing! one that I encourage! In most textbooks, exercises range in difficulty and approach. I write math problem sets for students, and I build them to go from mechanical to sophisticated. The last few problems involve proofs, applications, links between different areas of mathematics and statistics.

Students in my class who just do probability drills will not be able to do the last problem on the problem set. They don't have any practice at problem-solving in this context. Students who do all the exercises, and more, can do amazing things.
Yup, it's great for non GUI development and scripts. I use it daily and haven't had anything not work yet other than GUIs, but that's expected.
I feel like removing the function keys their original idea to where they couldn't go back when they were first conceived. It will be better to know what their function is without having to look it up in a manual. It makes the function keys on older computers look like index cards in a library.
To be honest, the only thing that's causing me to say it's not a "developer machine" is the keyboard. It features the same butterfly switches that the 12" MacBook has and my good are they horrible. I seriously can't imagine writing long sessions of code with this mushy keyboard.

I don't get it. With the new touch bar and stereo speakers they WANT us to use the MacBook as is, without external keyboard and then they give us these dreadful switches that almost feel like you're pressing a sheet of paper.

I understand that for the 12" MacBook they wanted a machine as thin as possible and the keyboard was too thick. But why oh why ok the pro lineup.

I actually REALLY really liked the type feeling of MacBook keyboards
Understood and thanks for the encouragement.

I haven't completely given up hope. I may still do it yet! :D
I'd say most of my time is spent in macOS, with perhaps a third of it spent in Windows. I don't really use F-keys in windows either. It seems these days the typical key mappings in Windows and macOS are essentially the same – Cmd+W closes a window on macOS, Ctrl+W does the same in windows. Perhaps the only time I use F-keys in windows is Alt+F4 to close an application, but even that just doesn't happen very often since closing the last window typically closes the application.

On macOS I use the keyboard for almost everything, but off hand I don't know a single key binding relying on F-keys. They're always Cmd[+Shift][+Alt]+Alphanum more or less.
Nothing you can't already do. It's just buttons with pretty graphics on them. If you want buttons to do "great productivity enhancements" the tech has been available for that on Macs for over a decade. Possibly decades plural; the Mac has had an active extension community for a long time, let alone the official stuff from Apple like AppleTalk, however flawed it may have been.

And there isn't much you can do with the pretty graphics on the buttons that you couldn't already do with pretty graphics on the screen, especially in an era of touchscreens. The whole touchbar strikes me as a demo-feature; demos great, in practice, not especially useful.
It's just the typical post Apple event trolling.
How easy is it to maintain? Last I heard every update breaks everything.
The pileups are 'due' to people going too fast for road and weather conditions. If you can't stop within your length of visibility, you're going too fast, end of discussion.
But how many enterprise shops hire contract developers, hand them a laptop and cubicle and say be here from 9-5.
I would also recommend Lenovo Thinkpads, which are quite popular with Linux folks. The X and T in particular give a lot of bang for your buck. I am also eying Thinkpad 13 as a great beater machine replacement for my aging x230.
In one keynote I went from being excited about what was coming to feeling held hostage, yet ignored, in the Apple ecosystem due to iOS app development. 16gb of RAM is just too limiting for some workloads.

I may need to outfit my team with powerful linux desktops and low end macbooks for app development and remote/emergency work.
C-] might be a better bet - it will cancel any active command, like C-g, and also back out of any recursive edits, while leaving your window layout intact.
Video: JSONata for querying complex JSON data structures
Sadly this seems to be the same old pile-on that happens after every apple product announcement:

> #1. No Escape and function keys [...] The Escape and Function keys on the laptops have been abandoned in favor of a touch bar that changed depending on the application that is being used.

They went out of their way to display the escape key and many other contextual keys with Terminal.app in the foreground† They did this despite it being possibly the least "sexy" demonstration of the hardware. This article seems to have been written after skimming some reporting on the keynote without researching the specifics.

† http://live.arstechnica.com/hello-again-apples-october-2016-...
I don't understand why people keep saying they've "removed" the escape key. The thing is programmable. http://live.arstechnica.com/hello-again-apples-october-2016-...
Not so - he turned down the IAS long before writing that!

The full context there is that he spent a semester exempt from teaching to have more time for research. He produced very little and was deeply embarrassed, until he eventually realized that many of his insights came from rehearsing fundamentals and talking to people in other subfields.

So he returned to teaching, and when the IAS came knocking he refused on the grounds that it was the worst environment for him to work. Certainly I think he's overgeneralizing (the IAS has seen some pretty good results since that time), but this wasn't about jealousy!
The escape key can be right there on the capslock (option to be enabled in System Preferences -> Keyboard). Using Esc key heavily with its default location is not practical at all. As for the F-keys I think this is more of a problem.
Good luck with HiDPI. It is very application dependent, so I would check what you typically use. From what I have tried and read, macOS handles HiDPI and multi-monitors much better than any other OS out there right now.

I'm so used to HiDPI just working on my MBP that I never even realized it was an issue on the other OSes until I started thinking about switching.
I mean it's still there, it's just not a physical key right?

And you can use ctrl [ instead which is closer to the home row anyway.
The frustrating thing is that machine only has 2 USB ports, rather than 4. So one port for power and another for a single wired accessory. I guess buying a dongle isn't a huge deal, but kind of frustrating that you'd have to spend more money for what I would expect to be included functionality for a "pro" machine.
US Hate Map
> The walls are buzzing. I know this because I have a magnet implanted in my hand and whenever I reach near an outlet I can feel them.

What in the world...?
Latency, even as low as 30ms if you're right near your desktop, is simply unbearable to me.
https://wrgms.com/editing-files-remotely-via-ssh-on-sublimet...
I've developed on a MacBook Pro for the last 5 years in vim and I have never touched the escape key or any of the F keys, ever.

If you're using vim and reaching for the escape key you are doing it wrong imho. Rebind esc to something else (like capslock) or learn another pattern that has more ergonomic value.
Find me a MRP that has: A balanced amount of nutrients, and not just 600% protein and 10% of everything else. Isn't loaded with sugar so it tastes like a dessert. Isn't filled with artificial sweeteners so it tastes like a fake dessert. And isn't nutritionally designed for body-builders / children / elderly.

I wouldn't mind switching away from Soylent. With articles like this, and their spammy marketing for their new products (no, I don't want a coffee flavored drink, no I don't want a candy bar). But I don't know any other products like it aside from the Soylent clones.
Lynda ( linkedin ) - My Video Downloader
You immediately lost any credibility when you complained that the 2.4 GHz processor is the "same" as the one back in 2010. Clock rate has nothing to do with performance these days. Skylake is 25-35% faster across the board (and multiples faster for number crunching) than whatever Nehalem or Core2 was in the Macbooks in 2010.
Told you its the same processor, http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/15-hours-with-the-13-ma...
The new TouchBar is fully defeatable and can behave exactly like an old school fn key row.

This post is totally devoid of substance and should actually be flagged.
I'm curious, what is driving the need for a new laptop from a 2014 version?
My biggest complaint is that they increased the size of the touchpad. I HATE touchpads, as the cursor tends to shoot off into space when I accidentally touch it with the heel of my hand when typing. The last thing I want is a larger touchpad.

If they're going to steal innovations from Thinkpads, I really wish they'd have taken the eraser nub instead. Back when I had a Thinkpad (running linux) as my work laptop, I would just disable the touchpad in the BIOS and use the eraser nub. The eraser nub is the thing I miss most from the thinkpad.
Euro NCAP have tested a E class Mercedess, which isn't that much smaller than an S class and it gets a higher rating than a Tesla Model S.

http://www.euroncap.com/en/results/mercedes-benz/e-class/253...
It's also a kinda crappy alternative, because it's not possible on a large number of non-English keyboard. Ctrl+c is also an option, although I think there's a slight difference.
The answer is simple. Apple doesn't think you should use VIM. You need to move on to more modern methods of programming.
Or a wifi connection for free!
Wages and employment going up will cushion that blow, as will (to a certain extent), import substitution.

There are no local sources for Macbook Pros that you can shift your consumption towards but there are local sources of groceries, and a more competitive export sector will mean more jobs and higher paid jobs.
Weekly Top 10: DevOps Transformations and Containers
I use it in its default location literally thousands of times a day and I don't mind. (I use a Mac at work.)
I guess it should be functional without an (compatible) OS present. Within the recovery screen and f keys using boot camp? Gotta have a tiny cpu + os for those.
I love a good meal and often plan my holidays and trips around them. However, lunch at work I an office park makes it hard to get good prepared food. It's also expensive. I love cooking, but I also love other things like programming and ceramics, so my time is limited. Soylent strikes a nice balance between nutrition and convenience for occasions where I don't have time and/or don't want to spend the money.
I would not otherwise eat z Chicken McNugget but probably a at best mediocre sandwich or cereal.
Trackpad is excellent, not as large as the Macbook Pro but works very smoothly under Linux with excellent precision. Re battery I get a solid 8 hours of work from it.
Yeah, I'm totally baffled as to who productively uses VIM and reaches waaaay up there with their pinky. In the first 10 minutes of learning I was googling "mac remap caps lock escape", and I haven't touched the actual escape key in years.
Very few vi power users actually use the ESC key, I think: the first tip given to everyone trying to transition to vi is to remap jj to ESC so you can do so without leaving the home row.

The RAM bugs me; replacing the F row with the touchstrip doesn't.
My understanding is that the escape key is there by default but the active application can choose to override it. I don't need the escape while I'm using Spotify.

I quite like the new Macbooks. Would have been nice to have a 32GB RAM option but I can survive with 16GB to be honest.
I'm sure the Touch Bar can be integrated with MacVim or VS Code etc to show keys that just look like regular Fn keys - that's not the problem developers would be irked of - it's just another thing to hack.

Really problematic however is that the 15" starts at $2399, is still capped at 16GB soldered RAM, the port situation isn't convenient (esp if you've an iPhone), the obsession with thinness continues at the expense of battery life and if you had to ding the Touch Bar it feels gimmicky.

There are much better games in PC town - don't even need to run Linux if you're not into it - Windows 10 is pretty good and with Ubuntu/bash built in, install a X server you're good to go.
I'm 99% sure the escape key will be there when in Terminal.app, I also imagine terminals like iTerm2 will have some really sweet TouchBar options to make it even better with all your console apps.
? Thunderbolt 3 is compatible with USB-C (in terms of the port)
There sure are some to be found - I personally find it too hard to override my habit of reaching for the upper left corner for esc. And believe me, I tried the caps-lock as esc key, but I kept hitting either shift or tab as well... Might just be a matter of practice though. Currently my caps-lock key is still remapped to esc since accidentially hitting caps lock is the worst.
You can, starting from Xcode 6
I believe the short video that introduced the new MBP showed the ESC key in the system bar in the first few seconds, they practically zoomed in on that ESC key. And it showed up in other configurations, just not all of them.

I would think if you are in a shell or similar context, the ESC will be there in the expected place. Why don't you wait and try it out at the Apple store?

No, let's fly to the internet to dash off a disposable opinion.
Apple is turning into a more expensive version of Belkin
There's more to politics than the election every 4 years.
Can you hack in tactile feedback so I don't have to look down at my hands like a toddler to use it?
16GB of RAM and a mobile i7 has been perfectly acceptable for my day-to-day development needs. As for expensive storage... that's unfortunately true of basically all laptops.

Doesn't help for development per se, but I do enjoy having the flexibility of the "gimmick" screen. I still prefer paper, but it's a viable alternative for note taking.
That's the default on every windows laptop I've used in the past decade as well. Laptop manufacturers realized a long time ago that volume and screen brightness are more important to the average consumer.
For 200$ you can order an acceptable, good looking laptop with 8 Gig ram and a low range Celeron quad core from China.

Gotta love apple. ^^

I cherish the memory of paying 60 Euros for my Apple HDMI adapter, another 40 for the VGA one, 80 Euros for a freaking charger,...
A lot of us live in a transient computing world, where we neither own nor have permissions to edit the bindings. Having one host with a binding and 6 other client's envs without, would a context switch failure invoke
Agreed! The old laptop had a bad placement for ESC anyway — major stretch!

I suspect that any devs picky enough about their typing that this would prevent them from buying this laptop are using alternate keyboards anyhow.
Exercise, sleep, meditation. When you feel better overall, you tend to be more focused, and less anxious.
> Supposedly AR glasses with multiple focal planes and with localized occlusion (blacking out the world;

I recommend being more specific when referring to occlusion with respect to AR systems. There are two primary forms: (1) "Real Occlusion" in which selected wavefronts are blocked (occluded) such that a transparent near-eye display is capable of displaying black, (2) "Virtual Occlusion" in which real objects are actively scanned/tracked to permit virtual objects to appear occluded being real objects.

ML system claims both capabilities, and I agree with you that Real Occlusion is several orders of magnitude more difficult. I think real occlusion is valuable, because in addition to displaying black it enables images to appear solid vice translucent. However, I don't feel it's an absolutely necessary feature for a quality AR systems. After all, ultra bright projection displays present perfectly fine images without displaying true black. They simply exploit the properties of human eye perception with respect to brightness contrast of adjacent pixels. An AR system can do the same.

Personally, I would prefer to have a quality AR system with unlimited FOV constraints and virtual occlusion capability sooner rather than wait for real occlusion to be perfected.
The trackpad is excellent, highly tunable (I just use the standard settings) with very good precision.
Like I said in another post, is a new single purpose cable a solution for a missing dongle if I still have to carry the old cable with me too? Great, I don't need a USB-C to USB-A dongle, I just need both my USB-C to lightning and USB-A to lightning cables. It is the same problem, just shifting around the inconvenience.

And if USB-C is so great and the future of all tech, why isn't Apple moving to it on their mobile devices? In my mind the problem isn't the specific technology used on any of these devices. The problem is that the devices aren't using the same technology between them.
> Chromebook and SSH into a REAL computer ;)

These threads have surprised me, because I figured most developers (or at least the web-focused ones that seem to be common on HN) would only need a browser and a shell. Instead, there is talk of needing 32GB of RAM. Wow.
He's currently throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, and all because the NHTSA wanted to ask him a few questions about the product (you can see it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...). Like, how dare the government try to have basic standards for multi-ton hunks of metal hurtling down the highway without human input.

I've been trying to convince people lately that Silicon Valley isn't all delusional technolibertarian assholes, but guys like this sure aren't making my case easy.
ESC key is required for productive use of Vim and even Photoshop! And since we are talking about graphics, Inkscape is heavy on Fn keys too.
I know a lot of people doing that.
Personally, I map caps lock to esc when pressed, and ctrl when pressed with another key. The best of both worlds.