macbook air good enough?

[Sendaii]

Thinking about purchasing a 13-inch macbook air for programming, using Sublime Text as well as Xcode.
Do you think the macbook air has sufficient enough power? And what, if any, upgrades should I add to it before ordering?

 

[virulent]

it's way more than enough.

if you searched you'd probably find everyone screams "8GB RAM !!!" so you probably want to go for that. as a developer myself also it's easy to use up 8 GB if you really want to and it's not as constricting as 4.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

If you're only planning on running 1VM at a time, or just xcode, 4gb is fine. You'll start to run into trouble if you have Photoshop, a web server, iTunes, and a VM with Visual Studio all going at once though.

From personal experience

Keep in mind, if you want to use an emulator (Android or WP) that's going to use another 1gb+ of RAM. If you're using it for "enterprise" work, with large projects and 100000+ of lines of code, you'll probably want more... everything.

And if you plan on doing anything related to Android development, you'll want a 32-core Mac Pro from 2016.

 

[Dweez]

Thinking about purchasing a 13-inch macbook air for programming, using Sublime Text as well as Xcode.
Do you think the macbook air has sufficient enough power? And what, if any, upgrades should I add to it before ordering?

Yes, it's more than sufficient. Go get it!

 

[kage207]

I love my MBA 13". I just wish I got a bigger HDD as I got the 128GB. The 256GB HDD would be the best if you are going to have a VM copy on your machine.

I also went with the 8GB of RAM. The reason I got is because I usually run, Xcode, Calendars, Mail, Reminders, Messages, Safari (or Chrome), iTunes, DropBox, ColorPicker, and Box all at the same time. Though right now I have iTunes off and watching Netflix on my external monitor as I do my web development for my personal site as it is my time to relax on Saturday.

Yes, the MBA is amazing. I just recommend 8GB of RAM and 256GB HDD (SSD). i7 isn't worth it.

 

[michaelsviews]

Thinking about purchasing a 13-inch macbook air for programming, using Sublime Text as well as Xcode.
Do you think the macbook air has sufficient enough power? And what, if any, upgrades should I add to it before ordering?

You mite want to check out the refurbished MBA's , you can save allot of money

 

[lagisibuk]

sometimes i'm using xcode with MBA air (4GB/128GB) and all is fine.
but, when u come with 8GB ram is better.

 

[kelon111]

Thinking about purchasing a 13-inch macbook air for programming, using Sublime Text as well as Xcode.
Do you think the macbook air has sufficient enough power? And what, if any, upgrades should I add to it before ordering?

I remember writing programs on a desktop with a Pentium 4 processor. A fancy 2013 MacBook Air with its Haswell based Intel CPU , SSD , etc. should have no issues with basic programming unless you are doing something wrong.

 

[AppleDApp]

You mite want to check out the refurbished MBA's , you can save allot of money

I saved 40$ going this route and got a higher specced then I wanted.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I remember writing programs on a desktop with a Pentium 4 processor. A fancy 2013 MacBook Air with its Haswell based Intel CPU , SSD , etc. should have no issues with basic programming unless you are doing something wrong.

You mean I don't need a quad core CPU to run bash? I started coding on a Heathkit breadboard with 512 bytes RAM, LOL.

On topic, I've done OS X and iOS programming on 2GB and 4GB machines without RAM-related issues. Heck, I have more Xcode-related issues than anything.

 

[michaelsviews]

You mean I don't need a quad core CPU to run bash? I started coding on a Heathkit breadboard with 512 bytes RAM, LOL.

Image

On topic, I've done OS X and iOS programming on 2GB and 4GB machines without RAM-related issues. Heck, I have more Xcode-related issues than anything.

Remember the Radio Shack TRS-80

 

[kelon111]

You mean I don't need a quad core CPU to run bash? I started coding on a Heathkit breadboard with 512 bytes RAM, LOL.

Image

On topic, I've done OS X and iOS programming on 2GB and 4GB machines without RAM-related issues. Heck, I have more Xcode-related issues than anything.

Well , I started out with C and then went to Intel ASM.
You probably are quite old if you used the Heathkit breadboard.
I don't think any universities in modern times use that to teach programming.

A Pentium 4 based computer is still acceptable for quite a few programming tasks which is why some schools still use them.

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Thinking about purchasing a 13-inch macbook air for programming, using Sublime Text as well as Xcode.
Do you think the macbook air has sufficient enough power? And what, if any, upgrades should I add to it before ordering?

OP , why don't you consider the Retina model? The screen is a lot better.

 

[Dweez]

Thinking about purchasing a 13-inch macbook air for programming, using Sublime Text as well as Xcode.
Do you think the macbook air has sufficient enough power? And what, if any, upgrades should I add to it before ordering?

Well? Did you pull the trigger?

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Remember the Radio Shack TRS-80

I used to hit radio shack on Saturday afternoons after paying off my paper route and practice my BASIC programming skills on the model I and model III (64K! 2! Floppy drives! TRS-DOS!) computers.

 

[maflynn]

I used to hit radio shack on Saturday afternoons after paying off my paper route and practice my BASIC programming skills on the model I and model III (64K! 2! Floppy drives! TRS-DOS!) computers.

Same here - the good ol' days

OP, did you take the plunge with the MBA, as others stated that would be more then enough machine for your needs.

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Well , I started out with C and then went to Intel ASM.
You probably are quite old if you used the Heathkit breadboard.
I don't think any universities in modern times use that to teach programming.

It was my technical high school electronics track where I used the heathkit. the breadboard was straight ASM, entered in hex.

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Same here - the good ol' days

Amazing what 36 years has given us in tech breakthroughs.

 

[Sendaii]

Well? Did you pull the trigger?

OP, did you take the plunge with the MBA, as others stated that would be more then enough machine for your needs.

I decided to go with the base 13inch model, with only 4gb of RAM. I hope that's enough, but so far it's going smoothly. I haven't started listening to iTunes yet while working though. That'll be the real test I think.

 

[MacAndMic]

I decided to go with the base 13inch model, with only 4gb of RAM. I hope that's enough, but so far it's going smoothly. I haven't started listening to iTunes yet while working though. That'll be the real test I think.

iTunes use around 65mb...I think you'll be fine.

 

[michaelsviews]

I used to hit radio shack on Saturday afternoons after paying off my paper route and practice my BASIC programming skills on the model I and model III (64K! 2! Floppy drives! TRS-DOS!) computers.

Think we're showing some age Oh yea Dual Floppy's Amber Screen and a 20 Meg HD was 500 dollars . Ok didn't mean to steal the thread.

LOTS of new refurbs posted today, picked up " I think " a sweet deal on a 13" MBA, 8GB, 256 Flash Drive.

TO OP you have 14 days guy

 

[michaelsviews]

I decided to go with the base 13inch model, with only 4gb of RAM. I hope that's enough, but so far it's going smoothly. I haven't started listening to iTunes yet while working though. That'll be the real test I think.

Post updates of your experience to share with others that mite be in the same boat.

 

[Meister]

I decided to go with the base 13inch model, with only 4gb of RAM. I hope that's enough, but so far it's going smoothly. I haven't started listening to iTunes yet while working though. That'll be the real test I think.

The real test would be to run lots of media apps simultaneously.
Itunes is not going to make a difference.
Besides that you will be very happy with the base mba. We have one, too and its very snappy. Enjoy!