Modern development hardware needs.

So its coming up on the time when I'm thinking about what kind of computer to upgrade to.  Our existing machine is a Macbook Pro that, when we got it 5 years ago, was top of the line.  Its taken a beating, going through 2 batteries, both fans, being dropped on a corner so the case is a bit warped, a hard drive death and the dvd drive dead (but never replaced) and now the power brick.  But all in all, a very solid reliable performer and still going.

So I'm thinking, this is still a pretty decent computer.  The last time I upgraded, the difference was pretty amazing.  For the last year and half, I had a company Macbook that was brand new with quad core processor and a huge harddrive.  But it wasn't hugely noticeable performance.  If I got a brand new Macbook today, I don't know that it would really seem that much faster.

Even though I am doing software development.  More specifically, web software.  So I'm running web servers and messaging queues and databases, browsers and editors, etc.  That's more than most people run, however, its not necessarily computationally intensive most of the time.  Do I really need a spanking new, blazing fast multicore monster of a laptop?

My first thought was, it would be cool to have a portable server box.  Like, really portable.. couldn't you pack a fast CPU and an SSD into a little box running linux and use that for dev?  Wouldn't that be better?  Then you wouldn't need all that running on your laptop.  Also you could then plug that into another machine and work if you wanted to.  And you could have a less beefy laptop.

Or, what if you just went all cloud based and have all your dev in the cloud?  Heck there's even a service that lets you have a Mac in the cloud (http://www.macincloud.com/) never mind all the other services like bitnami and heroku etc.  And if you don't like that, you could also build your own server at home and use that. The only drawback there is having a good internet connection, which might limit you if you like to work from Starbucks or something.

Either way, you wouldn't then need such a powerful laptop.  I'm thinking my next laptop will be less of a do-it-all expensive monster and more of a sleek portal into my cloud connected development envirionment.

And with the money I'll save, I can restore my kit car.