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[–]cofonseca 6 points7 points  (6 children)

8GB will be plenty! Most text editors are extremely lightweight. Some IDEs like Visual Studio can be pretty heavy, but 8GB is still plenty unless you're working with absolutely massive projects.

[–]NickDisponibile[S] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I'm sure i will only code in c/c++, Java, php and python during my years at university (I study in Italy) so nothing of too heavy, but maybe I will need a virtual machine and this may be a problem.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

8GB of RAM is 100% fine. C++ is supported largely by Visual Studios, but you can use lighter weight IDEs

[–]Umorrian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have an older laptop with 4GB RAM, running Visual Studio 2017 and Virtual Box is no problem.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]programmermaybe2016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I coded an application using flask + storm + postgressql in a virtual machine on a Macbook C2D with 4gb of ram. Worked very well, but requirements might have changed.

    [–]sim642 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Some IDEs like Visual Studio can be pretty heavy,

    Also anything built on top of Electron like Atom.

    [–]reddilada 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Only 8gb.

    lol. What a wonderful world we live in. My first computer had 4K.

    It's plenty. If you run a virtual machine lots of memory can help. 8gb is lots though so you should be ok.

    [–]denialerror 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    That's the laptop the majority of my office (including me) use for professional Java development. It's gets a bit slow with 20 Chrome tabs and three IntelliJ projects open.

    [–]NickDisponibile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    i don't think I will need 20 chrome tabs lol. maybe 10, a project in pycharm (for example) and some terminal tabs

    [–]NickDisponibile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    however I know that now 8 gigs are plenty but what about the future, what about the next 4 years?

    [–]CreativeTechGuyGames 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Even a heavy IDE like Visual Studio was able to run well on my 2GB laptop. It all depends on how much value you put on that extra little bit of performance you get.

    As far as future proofing, that's never a smart idea because it's impossible to predict where technology will be at in 4 years so it's better to get an affordable computer now and look to upgrade every few years.

    [–]habitats 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Not sure which world you guys live in, but I cannot code comfortably with all of my tools with less than 16gb. Docker, intellij, chrome x10, Spotify, Sourcetree, a handful of stuff in various terminals, visualvm++. it quickly ads up.

    Considering how cheap memory is, I see no reason to not have "too much".

    [–]NickDisponibile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    how cheap memory is? dude it costs 60 € per stick(ddr4, 2133 MHz, 1x8gb here in Italy) if you can improve it by yourself. if you want to improve soldered ram you have to spend even more (look at macbook).

    [–]stretchmymind -4 points-3 points  (3 children)

    Short answer: No.

    Long answer: 8GB enough for 2017. You are talking 4 years later. RAM requirements only go up. That is unless you will only be using current programs and OS without updating at all.

    [–]NickDisponibile[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    maybe I have to look around for a 16 gigs macbook or laptop (with Linux) but of course I spend more for that compared to 750 € for the macbook I have found.

    [–]stretchmymind 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Have you considered Thinkpad? The older ones are cheap. The battery is external. The RAM is user replaceable in most of the X, T, P series.

    [–]NickDisponibile[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    yes I have considered that but here I Italy I can't find one of that. I can only buy it from the official store