2018-04-10

My computing habits

I thought my personal computing habits differ from the norm, so I decided to write about how I do stuff, focusing on hardware in this post.

Choosing which device to use

When deciding to do some computing task, eg. reading a website, this is my preferred order of devices to use: Phone or iPad -> old laptop (2010) -> laptop (2013) -> desktop
I use my iPad Pro 10.5" more than any other device, including PCs. I like its responsiveness, security, small form factor and UX in most of my computing uses. Sadly, I can't really code on it, but I'll keep searching for solutions to that. Maybe WebGL development is possible. The desktop is my least used device, I practically only use it for VR, Vulkan and D3D12 development and some games I don't have on consoles. One of the reasons for this preferred order is power consumption  iPad uses less power than a laptop. My PC OS preferred order is Ubuntu -> macOS -> Windows.

Slow hardware upgrade cycle

I rarely buy new hardware. For example some of my HDDs are spinning disks because they still work and I don't want to discard working stuff. Modern hardware is so fast that upgrade cycles can be long. My current laptop is from 2013 and I see no reason to replace it in the foreseeable
 future. I don't judge people who buy new stuff often, but I personally just don't have a reason to buy a new phone every 2 years or so. My last phone cycle was 4 years and the old is still in good condition. I only buy new stuff when I have a compelling reason. It's also more environmentally friendly to use devices for a longer time before getting a new one. People often criticise Apple for planned obsolescence, but I beg to differ. Their devices get security updates for longer time than competitors and I still actively use a MacBook Pro from 2010, even without an SSD.

If people would replace their hardware less often, software developers would have more
incentive to optimise their code and use resources more efficiently. Viznut has written more on this topic and I recommend every eco-conscious or performance caring reader to read his writings.