I run VS Code on it a lot, often remote over SSH to my desktop to work on a personal raytracing project - I need the nvidia GPU to do CUDA stuff, and the 16 cores in my 3700x are pretty nice for non-GPU stuff too. I also stream games from my desktop to it using Parsec and Moonlight. I just play games casually, so no need for super low latency, and over my local network the experience is great.
I’m not sure how well it’ll be holding up at the 11 year mark though (4 years from now). But I think this habit of doing most of my development over ssh will potentially extend the life of it.
For the most part I agree with Drew. Based on all of the above, it does absolutely everything I need it to do. I can’t even remotely justify the cost of a new laptop due to this. However, if I get to the point where I can’t even run KDE comfortably, or get an equivalent desktop UX, it’s time to upgrade. I don’t prefer minimalist WMs (or Linux even really, but if anyone wants to reply, I’d prefer not to fight about using Linux as a desktop - it’s just not for me) - that’s where I draw the line and decide to get some newer hardware. Hopefully when I do, that hardware will last me another 7-10 years.
I really, really love programming. I love learning about computers. I'm so lucky to get to do this for work and get paid pretty well to do it. It engages left and right brain. Yes, it's logic, math, all that; but writing code is creative, too. There are endless ways to solve a given problem, and you get to decide what approach is going to be cleanest, and readable, and maintainable, and just _feels_ right.
Honestly though, doing code reviews isn't my favorite part of the job. It's fine, but the fun part for me is actually _doing_ it. Understanding the problem space in front of me and the constraints and all the other factors, and then generating _my own_ ideas and putting them into the editor, and iterating.
So yeah, if the job becomes essentially reviewing AI code.. I don't know if I will still enjoy doing this. I mean, I'll do what I have to, I have a family, but it's not an exciting prospect.
I'm not anti-AI at all and I use it to speed me up in plenty of ways. I'll have it give me snippets of code here and there for stuff I need, I'm using Claude Code here when the use case is right, that's all fine. I haven't had much luck with it implementing entire features or doing anything at ~medium complexity or higher. I don't _want_ it to do that anyway. I want to do that stuff. That's the fun part.
I am concerned about its energy consumption too, and the hype is quite irritating as well. On both of those fronts, there's an opportunity for us to step back and consider what LLMs are actually good at, and use them where appropriate, instead of trying to infuse everything with AI.
I'm probably just getting old and grumpy. But yeah, it's a little depressing.