

Casual users need as good a computer as possible, proficient users can make do - redacted
http://ignco.de/489

======
tikhonj
Hehe, I was thinking about this recently, and I suspect it's true. I actually
spent quite a bit on my current laptop (although, importantly, I optimized for
screen resolution, size and weight above sheer performance). Then I looked at
my usage patterns.

Which program do I use the most? Easy: Emacs and Firefox. Which I could
probably run--just as easily--on virtually any computer imaginable.

Emacs really speaks for itself; "eight megabytes and constantly swapping" is
not an insult any more. In the grand scheme of things, Emacs uses essentially
no resources.

And Firefox is good for two reasons: it's pretty efficient as is, and I don't
visit many heavy websites. Hacker News, StackOverflow, Reddit, Google,
hackage, Wikipedia and so on could easily be rendered by even the weakest of
computers.

So I could probably get by almost as comfortably on a ten-year-old laptop. The
main problem I would have would be with compilers (especially GHC), but I
don't compile large packages all that often. The programs I work on myself are
never gigantic. So for my own files, especially without optimizations, compile
time would not be an issue even on a smaller machine. And if I'm not using
Haskell or OCaml, chances are I'm using something like Scheme or Python or
JavaScript, which don't even have compile times.

I am definitely sure that I could get by on a significantly weaker computer
than somebody with less technical acumen. But would I? No! I love my useless
desktop effects, my silly widgets and my 20-second boot. I like my programs
opening in seconds. And I certainly enjoy having more computer power than I
strictly need.

So while I'm pretty sure I require far less computer resources than most
people, I'm still going to get a nicer computer than I strictly have to. Just
because I can.

Just an amusing observation I've had about myself.

~~~
lucian1900
I made the same observation and actually got an "underpowered" laptop. The
only time I ever notice it's less powerful than my desktop at work is on the
rare occasions I reboot into Windows (for some reason, its scheduler is much
worse than Linux's).

------
peteforde
I'm only 34, but my first hard drive had a capacity of 40MB.

I am genuinely excited to be alive at a time when people can describe having a
portable computer with a 128GB persistent ram disk as "making do".

No snark intended. Technology is amazing. That is all.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, this made me smile too. The Amiga computer ran a full-featured multi-
task OS on 512kb of RAM in 1984, and my Windows 7 is still struggling with 4gb
on RAM on the board as it constantly writes temporary files on the Disk.
Technology is amazing but somehow, our OSes are not "so" amazing. And let's
not forget Windows XP and its tendency to turn the MBR into crap over time,
making it slower and slower as time goes. Linux is a better OS in all these
aspects, but there's still room for improvement.

I would say we need a lot of power even for entry-level computers because our
software is incredibly bloated in the first place, and not written towards
efficiency. That's basically the game Microsoft and other have been playing
for a long time: do not care about performance, because the specs will catch
up anyway.

~~~
jiggy2011
That's not quite fair to compare, a modern computer OS has a lot more features
than something like Amiga OS.

Say for example, you have a folder full of movie files. The difference in
computing required between just displaying a list of the files in there vs
interrogating each file, generating a thumbnail on the fly and possibly
sorting based on some metadata inside the file is probably more than an order
of magnitude.

Not to mention all the extra stuff you have for security and stability when
you are running so many applications at the same time.

You also have the classic trade-off of developer time (and therefor time to
market) vs computer time.

~~~
moe
_The difference in computing required between just displaying a list of the
files in there vs interrogating each file, generating a thumbnail on the fly
and possibly sorting based on some metadata_

Perhaps it's just me but I would happily trade in all that gimmickery for a
usable file manager on OSX. I don't care for thumbnails.

I think I have tried every finder-addon and replacement under the sun. Nothing
comes close to the frictionless and _fast_ experience that (dare I say it)
Windows98 Explorer gave me 14 years ago.

~~~
OwlHuntr
iTerm + `locate`. It rarely fails to find anything. The solution is a bit "out
there," but it solves my problems.

~~~
moe
Well, point taken (I'm a heavy shell-user myself).

However there's a range of tasks where a GUI file manager is just the right
tool for the job. I maintain OSX should have a proper file manager, regardless
how much Apple wants the Filesystem metaphor to die.

------
bloaf
I disagree. I believe there is a threshold level of performance beyond which
casual users cannot discern any improvement.

I believe that threshold for CPU performance is currently around a low/mid-
range i5. Getting a faster processor than that will not translate into any
tangible benefits in everyday usage. Even if there were a CPU that had twice
the performance of an i5, an end user can not tell the difference between
"practically instantaneous" and "1/2 practically instantaneous."

Likewise, there are limits to storage capacity. My parents, for example, store
everything on a single 1TB hard disk. Their drive barely has 250GB used, OS
and all. At their current rate of consumption, they _might_ exceed 50% disk
use in 5 years. Now we could come up with cases where the computer user is a
photographer, a videographer, or likes to collect linux isos, but I believe in
most real "casual use" cases, anything >1TB (currently) may as well be
infinite.

Obviously there are also upper limits on what screen size a casual user would
be able to effectively utilize. We should note, of course, that many casual
users do not understand how to effectively manage windows between two
monitors. I think the coming increase in pixel density coupled with a medium
(say, 21 inch) monitor would provide a casual user with about as much screen
as they could effectively use.

Lastly, there are cost trade-offs for all these things. Consider home
internet. It is true that power users might be able to make do with internet
speeds that would frustrate casual users (e.g. using Opera Turbo or using a
data plan.) However, in my area for example, you would have to pay roughly 3x
as much to get a "performance" 25 Mbps package versus the entry level 3-5
Mbps. Would it make sense for someone to pay that much more for internet just
so that their youtube videos buffered faster?

~~~
aidenn0
Yes, but the casual user will need many GB of RAM on an i5. Any time I use my
wife's laptop, it goes something like this:

Man this is slow: "top -ores"

"Hey hon, can I close any of these 4 word documents? What about the 15
webpages? No? Okay, I'll go get my laptop."

~~~
bloaf
But I'd say that 6GB is probably more than adequate for casual users for the
next few years. (4GB might be enough, but if we allow for crapware...) 6GB
isn't top of the line, though; 8GB laptops are fairly common, and even higher
capacities (i.e. 12 and 16GB) are available. I am hard pressed to exceed 6GB
of memory use without resorting to methods like booting a virtual machine.

------
Zenst
It gets down to the issue with any product be it a car, house or even a
cooker. You have to maintain them, be that cleaning or proactive and reactive
maintenance like MOT on a car or repairs for a broken part.

This is also true of computers. Sadly the cost of AA/RAC for a car is a lot
cheaper than any software support agreement, let alone hardware. Which is half
the battle.

People treat computers like they treat calculators, a simple tool, robust that
should just work and you don't have to worry about it degrading overtime
beyond jam or dirt on the buttons.

It is with that that with most users the only maintenance they carry out is to
clean there mouse, monitor and keyboard. Those who know IT/computers well and
operating systems and even those who have a little knowledge, know that this
is not the case.

So the argument that a casual user needs a more robust/powerful computer to
counter the degrading aspect is right but also the wrong approach. For the
price of a high-end SSD computer the humbler user could buy a standard well
adjusted computer and a year later buy a replacement and still end up spending
less money.

With mobile phones and tablets the mentality the industry is bestowing is one
of that the product is good for the warranty period and after that you should
be getting a new model anyhow.

With that, you don't need bleeding edge or to be paying for it, you need
something that you can get support/issues dealt with under warranty. This is
why Apple are doing well, as for a common end user, having a store they can
get that level of support and a standard point of call is one which they know
and trust. If you get a Ford car, during its warranty period you get it
regularly serviced by Ford, this is true of a lot of consumer products for the
period of there warranty. It is outside that period were the extra user is
pushed that you use 3rd parties expertise.

Now with a computer the amount of time and effort to get it back to normal is
almost guaranteed to be greater than its initial cost if you start hand
repairing things beyond a certain level and with that a the approach of just
reinstalling became the standard and safest approach It's not lazy, its just
the best sane way. We have all heard the story of a friend of Steve Balmer
having issues with his PC and Mr Balmer saying my techs will sort it out and
after many many hours/days etc. they concluded that it was best to reinstall
than to hand pick all the spyware/malware and other issues it had. So as an
approach you not showing that you can't do it, just that it is really the
sanest and in many cases the only real way to fix the issue software wise.

Now back to a common run of the mill computer user having some high-end SSD
singing system. Sure it will hide the issues a lot of PC have in that it will
have the speed to hide those issues, does it make it better, is it a better
approach, nope. A approach which the user can pay for a PC and software and
have one place which he can get support, on a fair price support contract is
one which they want. People say Apple products are pricey, but there again
support is not cheap and if you can cover that and offer a little bit more
touchy feely element to the support procedure for the user then the user is
happier.

Yes you do have to hold there hand, but there again we are in many ways at the
stage with computers were there was no driving licence and antivirals is not
legally required so in many respects we have yet to get to the stage which has
a man walking in front with a red flag warning non drivers of the impending
car coming

It is also worth factoring in that computer with regards to laptops/desktops
are in many ways like Swiss army knifes in that they are multi functional
tools. you could have a computer that does just manage the time and display it
and it will just work doing that simple dedicated job, we call them watches
and you can get expensive or cheap ones, they generally just work, doing that
one job.

Imagine eating your meal using only Swiss army knifes, sure it would be
doable-though not as easy as using a dedicated knife, fork and spoon and
bottle opener etc. This is what home computers are, dedicated multi-function
tools. They can play games, they can do work processing and they can run
nuclear power plants, but they are also not as good as a dedicated tool for
the job.

So for a lot do they need a powerful computer, no they need a games console to
play games upon, they need a camera that plugs into there printer, they need a
computer that just does there internet banking/facebook and allows them to do
emails and type and read documents. So in many respects for common normal
users I'd say a dedicated tool whenever possible is more apt and for many a
chromebook would not be that wide of the mark.

Another way to look at it is does a normal user need a high-end scientific
function graphing calculator or something that does the basics. When you look
at it from that perspective you understand that a dedicated tool which will
just work at that limited range of tasks the user wants is more suitable than
not.

Remember the average common user want s simple interface and with that you can
appreciate why Windows8 changed as much, me as a geek who knows what to do I
found Vista just fine and lament the direction windows8 metro is going. But I
understand it and accept it. Though until we get a system that just works and
is not in need of software updates every random moment and is as robust as a
desktop calculator, well until then everybody could do with understanding a
little bit of computer maintenance in the same way that early car users had to
be mechanically minded or have somebody on staff who was.

Remember you can add a margin of error and give a normal user a high-end
computer or you can just eliminate that error and give them the tools they
need that just work. With that for many a games-console, telephone and Tablet
or Chromebook seem to be more suitable over the state of the art high-end
tools. It would be like shopping at Tesco's in a Ferrari, sure can be done,
but an expensive way towards practicality. I would also want a user that had
an issue to be able to know and get help, if they have malware scanning and
hacking away at the internet as part of a Bot army then I’d like there pc to
slow down and for them to be able to see they need help. Certainly not
approach that issue by making them have a faster PC and bigger pipe to the
internet.

~~~
regomodo
Do you have spellcheck enabled?

~~~
Zenst
No such option, though I did copy it, popped it into write and hit F7 to much
bemusement (thank you) and edited it as above.

------
sehugg
Sometimes it's good for developers to use an average or slightly below-average
machine (for testing, at least) so that they feel the pain of inefficient code
more deeply.

With the latest releases of OS X, I am convinced the entire Apple development
staff got SSDs way before I did.

~~~
X-Istence
I'm running the latest release of OS X (10.8.2) on a 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo
MacBook Pro from 2007. The only thing the OS has done is improve in speed over
its predecessors. I am not sure that it is entirely accurate to say that the
Apple development team got SSDs before we did because there was a noticeable
difference in speed on my laptop that was definitely appreciated.

~~~
jimwalsh
I had the opposite feeling of my old mbp. Every OS upgrade seemed to slow down
until I got an SSD and more ram in my new laptop. Which is expected to some
level. To say it got faster each iteration is a bit of a stretch.

------
Tmmrn
I strongly disagree.

1\. space

In a perfect reality I agree. In our reality you often end up with a crappy
unreliable or data volume capped internet connection. The data in the cloud is
useless when I can't access it fast enough.

2\. speed

If the cpu is slow it just is slow. Lukas, if you want to spend your time
waiting for the compiler rather than writing code, you can do that but I
don't.

3\. screen size

It is possible to run eclipse on a 1024x600 netbook. But I'm pretty sure the
productivity is higher if you can fit an ide, one or two pdfs, a web browser
and instant messages on your screen.

~~~
l3gatosan
A high-end user _benefits_ from a nicer machine. A low-end user _requires_ it.

For example, I largely mitigate most of your issues when using my netbook by
treating it as a terminal. The "real work" gets done on my faster rig, with
compilation offloaded to a grid. Because of that, I'm only a tiny bit less
productive on my netbook compared to working from my office.

And that entire productivity drop is due to the small screen.

------
tomflack
Having worked a helpdesk at a university, I agree 100%. It saddens me when
people come in with $400 pieces of junk loaded up with crapware that take 10
minutes for everything to load on startup.

I know how to remove all of that and get a reasonable experience out of the
hardware - they don't.

My 13" MBA with every option ticked is a way better "default" computer for
them, but they're not willing to or unable to spend the money for whatever
reason.

------
graeme
I do a fair bit of tutoring on Skype, at $80 an hour. Often 5-10 minutes of an
hour long lesson is spend watching my student deal with technical difficulties
on their computer.

Their system fails them at very simple tasks: displaying a website (often the
solution is use chrome or firefox rather then IE 8), opening a picture file,
bandwidth for Skype video, audio/microphone output, RAM for running Skype + a
browser, etc.

They waste money with me, and they're surely wasting time with almost
everything they do. It's bafflingly inefficient, when you consider the
_marginal_ cost of buying a better computer at purchase time.

~~~
lucian1900
However, much of what you described has little or nothing to do with them
having bad hardware. It's almost exclusively software and amenities
(bandwidth).

~~~
graeme
Yeah, I generalized it to not makintbe effort to setting up a good system,
such as paying $10 a month for better bandwidth, or upgrading old software. XP
+ IE8

------
noonespecial
Here's my anecdote:

I cut my teeth programming MC6811's with eprom storage. I'm more than happy to
program a PIC in assembly to make my projects go, but I'm super impressed with
what today's army of weekend warriors can do with their arduinos.

------
muro
I agree on some points - getting a bad screen or keyboard will make using the
machine painful - get good ones. Investing into a faster CPU or GPU is a
complete waste of money. Most of the cheap machines try to give you a fast CPU
while skipping on the important parts.

I found chromebooks to use decent hardware where it matters and skipping on
the rest.

~~~
jrockway
Faster CPUs are always nice, however. I wouldn't consider them a waste of
money for a development machine. Even web browsing is improved by a faster
processor, however.

~~~
muro
I agree when comparing atom to a core, but I can't tell the difference between
a i5 and a i7.

~~~
jrockway
Having owned both, I can. Not so much with web browsing but with compile/test
cycles, every little bit makes a noticable difference. (Remember when Linux
kernel compiles took 20 minutes? Now 20 seconds feels like a long time.)

------
chops
I have to agree with this sentiment.

My personal anecdote is more that I have a handful of better computers in the
house, but the laptop I spend the most time working and programming with is my
crappy 8-year old gateway running Ubuntu. I'm not entirely sure why I'm drawn
to it over the others, even if it's the slowest and oldest machine in the
house (excluding my netbook). But I type faster on this keyboard than any
other keyboard I've ever used.

There's just something about it that I prefer, and I'm perfectly willing to
deal with its warts, as it's used almost exclusively for programming (vim and
ssh don't exactly use a lot of resources). Chrome does have some memory issues
on it (and I'm considering switching back to Firefox for that laptop), and
sometimes compilation times get annoying, but overall, this system has been
tweaked and configured to be my ultimate programming machine.

Plus, testing server software on slower machines can be helpful to find
bottlenecks that might not present themselves as obviously on blazing fast
machines.

All that said, I'd say we've gotten to the point where a casual user will do
just fine with 4-year-old technology. Most Core2 machines are fast enough for
just about anything. And Casual PC users typically aren't PC Gamers, which is
its own segment, and even then, my Core2 PC for gaming is "fast enough" to
play the games I play.

------
waivej
I am pleasantly surprised by how much I agree with this article and it applies
to other technology like cars, tools, etc. A good corollary is a proficient
user is well served by spares.

Ex: our router is acting up so I'll swap it with one sitting on a shelf. Or,
it's easier to fix your computer or car if you have another one to download
patches or give you a few days to get the job done.

------
stan_rogers
...for small values of "proficient". Although I do a lot of different things
with a computer these days, my primary use case is editing large photographic
images in quantity. And while I don't need the working machine to have a large
amount of long-term storage (it lives elsewhere most of the time), RAM,
processing speed (both CPU and CGU) and display size (and depth) matter to me
in ways that they absolutely do not to a typical Instagram lunch-picture-
poster. Let's not mistake programming or text document creation for
"proficiency" or for a "normative" professional use case. There are a lot of
people out there dealing with media creation, and processing power (along with
software that can efficiently use that power) makes a _huge_ difference in
productivity. If I can knock two minutes off of the processing time for each
"keeper" image shot at a wedding, that's a full working day saved. And
compared to the video guys, I have it easy.

------
dragonbonheur
The guy who wrote this uses a mac, his examples are relevant to mac software,
is he even entitled to write about the subject or did he just try to fill his
weekly rant quota?

If you have a mac, don't write about netbooks being shitty. It's your opinion,
true, but you should keep that opinion to yourself.

I do lots on my netbook.

~~~
LukasMathis
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I needed some kind of official entitlement to
be allowed to write about this subject. Since you seem to know more, can you
point me in the proper direction? Where do I get the entitlement that I
require?

By the way, I also have two netbooks (a Asus running Ubuntu, and a
hackintoshed Dell). That's kind of my point: netbooks aren't shitty — for
people like us. We know what they are, and we can work around their
limitations. Most "regular" people don't, and can't.

------
stretchwithme
Makes sense. But I will give an Arduino to the next senior citizen I meet and
find out for sure.

------
pilot_pirx
Proficient users can do: depends on the kind of work you do, if you have to
process images or video data or compile large projects, run data analysis
tools on large amounts of data then you will need a fast computer. But for
everyday work this is right, I can set up a decent enough Linux + browser +
text editor and a few more tools on a very low level machine.

Casual users need a good computer: Maybe, but the problems described do not
disappear with a better computer. If you crap a small or medium machine, it
will only take a bit longer until you messed up a better machine too.

------
bo1024
I would argue that most of these issues are software problems. Advising casual
users to buy better hardware might help the symptoms somewhat, but the real
solution would be better-adapted software or non-lazy developers. (Better-
adapted: software that runs well on entry-level machines rather than just on
state-of-the-art machines. Lazy: write poorly-performing code and rely on
state-of-the-art hardware to run it.)

~~~
aes256
In many cases this is true, but the thrust of the article is that enthusiasts
are able to make more efficient use of the resources available than entry-
level users.

Certainly one aspect of that is enthusiasts having the good sense to either
fix or dump bloated software.

------
nspattak
I respect the authors' thoughts but I think that he is utterly mislead. Crappy
software (eg windows) has always exceeded hardware capabilities. Buying the
best (and most expensive) is a dead end. You will both pay too much and still
have the same bad experience, only a little later in the future.

I would argue that all that is needed is that casual users demanding what they
pay for, eg a system that works.

------
smackfu
> Most casual iPhone owners I know never synchronize their iPhones, but take
> tons of pictures with it.

One interesting side effect of this is that casual users are probably not
using iCloud backups, because the free space is only 5 GB and they have more
than 5 GB of photos so it refuses to backup.

------
ybaumes
I don't the same point of view as the writer in the article. In essence mine
is: you need an __adapted __device to your __needs __.

Since casual users buy a device for emails, browsing the web and watching
movies, they must buy a deviced adated to those needs. And the iPad v1 for
instance is well suited. If you look at the iPad v1's tech specs, it is not
tremendous. I don't remember exactly, something like 256MB RAM ... 16Go SSD
disk .. and so on. Apple made technical choices (or design choices) based on
the user needs.

At the contrary if I need to compile big c++ projects with more that 1,000,000
lines of code. I need to set-up a something suiting my needs. Either a big
machine with a big horsepower. Or a compiling grid? Whatever. Something that
suit my needs.

------
maxobiwan
"I don’t have any issues using a notebook with a 128GB SSD, because my iTunes
library and my photos are on a home server. I also use cloud storage
extensively, and don’t store a lot locally."

So, the casual people should allready use home server and cloud storage before
buying a computer

~~~
LukasMathis
No. The point is that they don't have these things, so they probably need more
than 128 GB of storage on their laptop.

------
agumonkey
Encouraging money wasting to make up for misdesigns and lack of education ?
Hard to agree with that.

~~~
LukasMathis
Not everybody wants to be "educated" in the intricacies of modern PC hardware
and OS design. And, in fact, not everybody _should_ _need_ to be. I don't know
exactly how trains work; I just sit in one, and it gets me to where I want to
go.

And that's good.

It's not my job to fix the train to get it to run properly; neither should it
be the user's job to fix their crappy computer. Instead, her job should be to
do a heart transplant, or write a court ruling, or fix the clutch in a car.
That doesn't make her uneducated; it makes her somebody who views her computer
as a tool, not as a hobby.

~~~
agumonkey
I don't subscribe to this. Using a transport system isn't just sitting in the
first thing you see. You'll probably have to book, or know a map, decode the
lingo of the network. And that's only if they provide you just what you need.
If there's a problem, you'll have to rewire your plan, find new paths, their
data, compare .. How many people get confused in subways on their first
encounter ? just stopping using it for a few months and you'll lose habits.

Just like a computer.

And I'm absolutely not fond of how our OSes and software are designed, that's
what I was suggesting by 'misdesigns'. What I reject is the neverending story
of buying new shiny when old rusty could have done it but nobody told you
that. People's mindset is that problems are solved by spilling money and
trashing usable devices, double waste.

~~~
LukasMathis
You sound like you're unfamiliar with public transport?

The way trains usually work nowadays is that you open a website, enter from
where to where you want to go, and when you want to arrive, push the "pay"
button, and print out the resulting page (which contains your schedule,
sometimes a backup schedule, and a QR code that works as your ticket). Then,
you just follow the schedule.

There's absolutely no need to know any map or lingo or network.

The main point I'm making is that, for most people, computers are appliances.
I use my stove, but I'm not a cook. I'm not a "stove technician", either. I
just know that I need to heat stuff at a certain level for a certain amount of
time, and I only have to turn a simple knob to achieve that.

Similarly, most computer users aren't programmers or techs. They just want to
write a letter. They should be able to do that without knowing about viruses
and SSDs and RAM and OS upgrades and file format incompatibilities.

~~~
agumonkey
I'm familiar with it, I see people confused everyday, myself too sometimes.
It's a nice myth that you can just get somewhere and everything will unfold
naturally. You'll always have to learn how to communicate your intent to a
system, and for each implementation of this system it will be slightly
different, be it a subway network, a word processor, a stove, or even a
pencil.

------
overnover
assuming a decent computer is affordable by average ppl. why bother killing
this n that, switching here and there just to accomodate an old/cheap
computer? just my thought :)

------
bulletmagnet
This is a stupid statement. If that's true, then why are many casual users
ditching computers for tablets?

~~~
LukasMathis
Because (some) tablets actually _are_ good computers. They achieve extremely
high quality (speed, good UX) at the tasks they do by simply not doing most of
the tasks a desktop PC does. If you only want to do email and some web
browsing, a tablet is actually a higher-quality, faster, easier-to-use machine
than a PC.

