Necessity is the mother of all inventions. I had n...

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[jmfayard]

Necessity is the mother of all inventions.
I had no MacBook Pro available
so I investigated what kind of programming I could do on my Chromebook.

Answer: Chromebook can do more than what you think.
It's not perfect but there is a lot of potential.
You can run all Android apps, Debian Strech or another Linux container,
IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, Visual Studio Code, ....

https://dev.to/jmfayard/coding-on-a-chromebook-4pmp

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

Android Studio is pretty heavy on resources and with the emulator running side by side how good of an experience do you get?

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

Since a chromebook supports Android apps I assume the "emulator" is actually the device itself running the app in a smaller window

[sikri]

But the price of chromebook is enormous, considering the fact, that you cannot do there anything, except developing

[jmfayard]

@Sebi Sheldin Sebastian really good question, I don't know yet about the "emulator" part of it.

For compiling, Chromebook are not fast...

The next thing I want to experiment with is delegating the Gradle build on another server using rsync+ssh or using Mirakle

https://blog.stylingandroid.com/mainframer-mirakle/
https://github.com/Instamotor-Labs/mirakle

[sikri]

Moreover, macOS gives you access to run iOS code, check how certain things were done on another mobile and general apps, that could be used outside development purposes

[sikri]

But IMO, Chromebook + Bazel would be fine

[sikri]

But that’s development style of year 2k25 or 2k30

[jmfayard]

Mykyta: it's a secret for nobody that macbook pro are nice developer machines.
The thing is: I have no macbook pro or budget to buy one right now.
And also I am thinking about teaching programming, and I'm not sure asking every student to buy a macbook pro is a good solution.

[sikri]

Buy used thinkpad, dell, whatever. Chromebook is overpriced for its purposes

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

How much is the most powerful Chromebooks? and what do you plan on suggesting to your students?

[jmfayard]

Overpriced?
I bought my Chromebook for 450€, the MacBook Pro I would like cost 3000+€

[sikri]

You are wrong in comparing chromebook to macbook pro
You have to compare chromebook to any other laptop, except macbook.

[jmfayard]

@Sebi Sheldin Sebastian
for hardware recommendations:

Source: https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/android-studio-chrome-os-chromebook-recommendation-google-io-2019/

And speaking of Chromebooks for Android development, Google has an official list of recommended hardware requirements:

8 GB RAM minimum

4 GB of available disk space minimum

1280 x 800 minimum screen resolution

Intel i5 or higher (U series or higher)

This is Google’s list of recommended devices:

Lenovo Yoga C630 Chromebook

Acer Chromebook Spin 13

HP Chromebook x360

HP Chromebox G2

Acer Chromebox CXI3

[jmfayard]

Mykyta: I'm not saying they are the same.
Just that I programmed on a macbook pro since 5+ years, didn't want to spend 3000+€ on a new one right now,
so I investigated what was possible to do with the 450€ Chromebook I already had.

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

@sikri overpriced is an exaggeration for Chromebooks, they are known for their relative cheap prices and how notoriously slow they can be for anything else other than browsing, unless you are looking at a very high end Chromebook and this is the most expensive I can find https://www.google.co.in/chromebook/device/google-pixelbook/ the Google PixelBook at 999$

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

Yeah Macbooks are the very definition of overpriced

[sikri]

@Sebi Sheldin Sebastian and you can compare that to thinkpad x280, for example, or some dell machine and it will beat chromebook in at least one thing - it is general purpose machine

[jmfayard]

@sikri thanks for the suggestion. To be clear, there is more than one operating system and laptop on which it's possible to do programming.

[sikri]

macbook are overpriced in price-per-ghz, or any other technical characteristic, but in general - not that much
iMac, btw, is not overpriced in any way, including technically
High-end mbps are not overpriced either, macbook airs and low-end mbps are overpriced, definitely

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

lol typing this on a MBP but I definitely think 3000€ is waaay too much, their values come in how long and reliably they last, including their battery life, performance wise though? For the same price the kind of Windows Laptop will be powerful enough to game and develop at the same time, lol

[sikri]

I apologize, but chromebooks are definitely overpriced due to OS, even though, there is Crostini.
That is just a joke for now.
But in future, it probably would be possible and preferable, due to development of cloud ides, popularization of remote build systems, like bazel, and other things that just show that we are moving towards good old mainframe-terminal days.
I’ve bought used old 1st gen chromebook for 50 bucks just for testing chrome os and it is awesome for browsing (due to fork of chromium that has hardware acceleration, probably). I use crouton there, it is okay, VS Code works, building on remote machine, is looks fine this way.

[sikri]

MBP 2016-2017 were awful, 2018-2019 a bit better, that new MBP 2016 seems promising

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

and no matter how much I keep praising the Linux community one thing is undeniable, Microsoft is listening to their customers, after not touching a Windows machine for a long time, when I recently used an SSD based Windows machine, was definitely blown away by how capable it has become, also as Linux enthusiast for me a shocker was it now supports the Windows Subsytem for Linux...Windows is growing crazily..and there are people who say the multi-tasking feels superior on the Windows platform, while nowadays MacOS feels...for a lack of better terms..stale....it works though so I guess everyone can be happy about that

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

if iOS development wasn't a concern I probably would jump ship to a Windows/Linux machine and ChromeBooks were something I looked at in the past

[sikri]

Better docker support on Windows would be another impressive move for M$.
I’ve never developed anything for Microsoft systems (Windows or Windows phone) or using any Microsoft stuff for developing (Visual Studio, C#, .Net or .Net Core), except VS Code, and it is just the only company that thinks about developers and does for developers

[jmfayard]

I wonder what I could have said differently so that my article
"Hey actually, my Chromebook can do more on the programming side than I thought"
do not generate a discussion "Apple vs Microsoft vs Linux vs Google: who is the best and who is the worst?"
I don't find that question interesting.
Please use whatever is good for your particular needs.

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

Its more of a debate, on which at the moment is a good choice without destroying our pockets

[sikri]

Definitely agree

[jmfayard]

Ok, but just to be clear: I don't pretend to know the answer to that debate.

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

At the end all we need is something that works and doesn't reduce productivity, like a slower machine = long build wait times which is directly a negative scenario

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

@jmfayard good article though, might revisit considering a Chromebooks for development, I myself am looking at cheap solutions, for my brother who is an Android dev btw

[jmfayard]

If you manage to setup building on an external server, please add your input 🙂

[Mike]

@jmfayard I don't think you could have done anything different. In this large a community, any mention of computers is going to bring out at least one person talking about Mac, at least one about MS and at least one about Linux. As soon as one of those people shows up, the others chime in.

Similar to mentioned tabs vs spaces, Vim vs emacs or discussing an interesting feature of a language. All the 'but mine is better' inevitably comes out.

Personally, I'm grateful for people like you that share their experiences in different scenarios.

As you said, not everyone can afford a $3000 laptop, especially if they're just starting out, and not sure they want to pursue this.

[janvladimirmostert]

that's impressive, had no idea you could run those things on a Chromebook

[jmfayard]

neither did I 😄

[Seri]

I got through my Computer Science degree with a $200, 2012 Chromebook. Used crouton to run Ubuntu and native linux apps, and delegated any heavy compilations to either a dev AWS environment or my desktop back home

[ghedeon]

I'm not sure asking every student to buy a macbook pro is a good solution
Well, asking them to buy Chromebook is just asking for more troubles, when they realize they can't run shit on it 🙂

[Mike]

Hmmm, this article/experience tends to show otherwise... And a lot less expensive to get started in something you may not pursue further... Sure, not perfect, but a starting point. Everyone doesn't have $3500+ to spend on a tool for a trade they aren't in yet...

[sikri]

just, please, stop comparing macbooks and chromebooks
macbook is not the only option and chromebooks are not definitely the cheapest

[jmfayard]

Mykyta, my article was about what can I do with my existing Chromebook.
Budget: 0€, definitely the cheapeast.

Saying which computer and operating system are the best and the worst
is an explicit non goal for me.

Please write your own article if you have a lot to say on the subject.

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

@jmfayard I was convinced by your article to go and get a Chromebook, told my brother about buying one, the only thing he told me back was "I cannot deal with the complicated setup and maintenance, and I might keep disturbing you for every little problem I face", the "disturbing you" part was for lack of better words disturbing, do you plan on following up of this article with how your students adopted this change? Btw the change for him is from a Windows 10 (HDD based ancient laptop, that is literally cracking), so it might be a reason why he thought the setup is complicated

[jmfayard]

@Sebi Sheldin Sebastian no, I don't plan to update it soon. I won't do the courses this year. One additional thing I've found is that it's too early to do Android on the Chromebook. They ask you to enable developer mode, which is a no no.

[Sebi Sheldin Sebastian]

Ah, @jmfayard thanks for a direct "too early for Android development" answer, disheartening...I'll make him use the dying laptop till finally it becomes two pieces, atleast for a few months....and then whatever I can afford without resorting to having Cheerios and Milk for months for the whole family..lol

[Matej Drobnič]

Just wondering, why are the only choices here "Macbook Pro" or "Chromebook", two extreme ends of the spectrum?

There are plenty of other laptops out there that are much cheaper than Macbook, but still have enough of a beefy hardware to run any development tools.

[Mike]

One could also ask, and it has been, why a post about ‘Things you can do with a chrome book that may surprise you’ turned into a general laptop battle.

[Matej Drobnič]

I guess it was the premise: "I can't afford Macbook Pro, so let's try doing it on Chromebook"

[jmfayard]

That was exactly the premise yes.