[stinos]

Well obviously it's not for coding, but I understand the one you're replying to perfectly. And I think there are hordes of developpers out there coding daily on their MBP. Which are now sort of left alone. Anecdote, though I doubt I'll be the only one for which the lack of F keys is a showstopper - also see other HN comments: after about 5 years on a Dell I was thingking maybe this year to go back to a MBP (even though my last one lasted only 3 years) but seeing I spend a lot of time debugging, which translates to repeatedly hitting F-keys which is burnt into muscle memory, it's just not going to happen. Even if I'd learn to do it with that bar thingie, it's a bit of a waste of time since going back to any other machine the bar isn't there.

[coldtea]

>Which are now sort of left alone.

Why? When were coders big on the function keys? Aren't you supposed to not take your hands from the home row, even with Vim/Emacs?

[stinos]

Coders don't just write code (no, you don't need F keys for that and yes your hands kan stay on the home row) they also debug it (for which the environments I, and seemingly others, use, assigned the F keys many many years ago)