Depends on the processor. Microcontroller type processing where the eventual part can be produced en masse for very low prices perhaps but with a multiply instruction "scaling" would almost certainly be used instead of using floating point representations of reals. With more powerful processors (read it most) like the ones you find in PCs, there are dedicated floating point instructions to deal with real numbers. It doesn't take multiple instructions to do real number operations.

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, I'm posting here because I mainly use it for programming.

Currently I have a ~2009 MBP (2.66 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM) which is showing it's age.

I use it for the following:

- PHP/MySQL/RoR/iOS running in OSx
- MSSQL/Office (for work)/Android running in parallels

My main annoyance at the moment is that I use MSSQL server a lot, and running a query on remote desktop to production vs on my local environment takes almost 10 times as long 30sec v 3-5min depending. I'm definitely more of a software person and have no idea of current hardware trends.

Weight is also a big concern as I do a lot of traveling so anything too bulky is out.

Looking to spend <2k ideally and would prefer 15'' but I could be convinced to go 13''.

The way I see it I have the following options:

1) stock 15'' MBP retina 2.4GHz intel core i7 8GB ram (can i manually upgrade this to 16 outside of apple?) $2,200 definitely the top of my range in terms of how much i'd like to spend. Plus I feel like i'd want to get the 2.7GHz for $2,300 (is it worth it?)

2) 15'' MBP non retina (do i really need retina?) 2.3 GHz i7 4GB ram (i already have 2 x 4gb in my current laptop so i could switch them i assume?) $1,799 - I would probably then take out the CD drive and replace it with a SSD to put the OS and SQL server on.

3) I'm not against moving away from apple ecosystem but I haven't looked at a non apple laptop in 3 years and I have no idea what would work for me. I could still do my iOS stuff on my old (current) laptop.

Thanks for any advice!

get the retina. get an SSD. get as much ram as you possibly can for your virtualization situation; you can do it after-market, though i'm not sure of the warranty consequences.

you'll never notice the diff b/t 2.4G and 2.7G, so pass on that.

I was pretty lost at the original, but now I'm totally blown away.

I do lurve my Retina display MBP, text is very readable for old people eyes.

I have the MBP 15" with retina and the 256gig SSD and it's easily my favorite computer I've ever owned.

if you are querying a database that is stored on your local machine, then i'm gonna guess that your hard drive is your biggest bottleneck

you might be able to get away with merely upgrading to a SSD drive and keeping your current computer

Absolutely this. Its amazing.

Edit: It's also the biggest jump in performance/usability from my previous computer that I think I've ever had.

i will be travelling out of the country, and want a good proxy server here in the US that i could use for general internet traffic, including the ability to stream netflix. can anyone recommend a good one?

Pretty much 100% this (especially the processor upgrade..save that money) or check out a non-Apple laptop with a good display and HDD if that's an option for you.

SSD is an absolute stone cold lock must have. Would def rather have no ratina+SSD vs ratina+HDD for example (but ldo get both)

lol ok, thanks for the advice everyone!

Me too, but retina is still pretty awesome.

It's mute since you can't get the retina without an SSD.

I think he was talking about a non-Apple option.

My initial plan was the non-retina MBP and removing the CD drive and replacing with an SSD. Then it's basically the same specs just no retina and slightly thicker

Say you are making an app and you make a public static class called Define.
In that class you make a bunch of consts such as ... background color = blue; mainPageTextColor = white; introScreenAnimationTime = 5 seconds; etc. This way you can change all the looks of your app in one place easily. This goes against encapsulation so I guess its a "no no" but imo it makes pretty good sense. This way you can tweek all the looks and feel of the app in one place very easily and not run around looking for where you defined the color of some random button. Thoughts?

Seems fine to me. I think its important to think about how you're going to be changing an application. If you're going to be doing a lot of related changes at once (to your overall look and feel for instance) than it makes sense to keep all of those things you'll change in one place. If you're rarely going to change things at once and generally only tweak specific things at a specific time than I think you should keep the constants with the object/concept they're related to so you can easily find the specific constant you need.

A slight improvement might be to group your constants by related function and name your class appropriately. So look and feel constants should be separate from your functional constants and in a class LookAndFeelConstants (or whatever).

The better solution (that might be overkill in your case) is to have a configuration file with all of these settings. Then you can define the constants in the appropriate classes so you can easily find relevant constants while working with the code but you also have a single place to look at/modify your specific values.

It already sounds like things are way too over engineered if he has a need for such a thing. A CSS file controls the look of your site already. If you want variables then just use something like stylus or sass.

If you have trouble finding the look of something like the javascript that controls the fade in time to a splash screen then your page structure is probably too complicated. I tend to keep things very modular and small.

I would have a separate folder for each little component of the site and inside of each of these foldes lives the css, template files, and any server side code to make them work. Then if you need to change something it's pretty easy to find. In your case you might have an /intro folder, and there could be a javascript file that controls that fade in time.

Maybe it's just a style choice here but I find self contained things much much easier to grasp. When I have a web site with 25 self contained folders/modules it's really easy to find stuff that needs to be changed.

I don't think he's dealing with a web site. At least, that's what I assumed from reading his post.

Stack overflow etiquette question, I have next to no experience posting on stack overflow but we're starting to make an effort to be more involved in our community and answering questions we're knowledgeable about on stack overflow is one part of that.

So there was a question today that was very related to a blog post I wrote last week. I answered the specific question but then at the end pointed him towards my blog post. I genuinely think it'll help and it wasn't just for self promotion but I'm wondering what people think about this.

I don't think most people mind a link as long as you answered the question without the link and the link is just for extra material or maybe goes into much more depth.

People only dislike it when someone posts a link as an answer, it's basically the same as telling them to Google for it.

I don't think there is a non-apple option for the retina display, anyone heard of one?

I thought I read recently about laptops with high density displays rivalling Apple's retina display. Not sure the details though.

I hope the Ubuntu tablet+phone turn out to work as advertised. Would be pretty sweet. Wanted to get a plain old Android Nexus 4 anyways but will wait for the installer and see how it looks/works. Not sure how well it is supported by carriers here. T-Mobile doesn't offer it yet it seems.

I see no real use for a tablet right now (except for maybe reading papers+Trello) but whatever I'll probably get one which I can install Ubuntu on and just use it as a media station or something. Tick, tock waiting for Thursday I guess.

If i'm paying 1k more for retina display in a mac vs an equivalent non-apple laptop I can get then I don't really care about retina