[ramenmeal]

Dumb question:

> constant crashes, an insanely slow single-core Intel Atom processor, and questionable build quality would make it clear to anyone that it was very much a product built for dogfooding, not as a replacement for your Windows or Mac notebook

This use of "dogfooding" confuses me, wouldn't the chromebook being used for dogfooding mean it was meant as a replacement for your windows/mac notebook? Or if not, how does it relate to whether the chrombook was meant to replace windows/mac notebooks?

[abrowne]

I think they mean it wasn't ready as a product to be sold to the public.

[netsharc]

Seems like the author doesn't really know the meaning of that term (or well, is using that term not in the way you and I understand it). That word is even linked to the Wikipedia page, but it says:

> This can be a way for an organization to test its products in real-world usage. Hence dogfooding can act as quality control,

It smells like the author wanted to use a fancier term for "beta-testing".

[13hours]

He also doesn't seem to know quite what "delusional" means. He uses it to describe people that don't agree with him.

[timw4mail]

The build quality of the Cr48 was pretty decent, especially for a machine they were giving away. The only part on mine that really failed was the display hinge, after I dropped it. The keyboard is pretty decent.

The atom processor and the 2GB max of ram is what really was the problem with it.

All that said, they supported the Cr48 for a long time after it was sent to people, especially considering it was basically public beta test hardware.

[toyg]

I think he meant that it was a replacement for windows/mac but only in enterprise settings with very limited requirements.

To be honest, I’ve never seen “dogfooding” used in such negative terms, but this seems the most likely explanation.

[whywhywhywhy]

Atom processor might not be a restriction out of choice but out of limitations.

Building a x86 laptop, sourcing processors from Intel is actually much harder than you’d expect if you’re new to the game and doing smaller runs.

[pgeorgi]

That paragraph refers to the Cr-48 pilot device. Dogfooding seems to be an apt description of what it was for.

(Disclosure: I work on Chrome OS firmware, but started later, so I never saw one of the Cr-48s)

[sly010]

Perhaps he meant it's table scraps?

[gruez]

No, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dogfood#Verb

[war1025]

What the above commenters are getting at is the way the sentence is phrased, it seems to be implying something different from traditional "dogfooding".

Something like table scraps does seem more appropriate in that sentence to me. Unless there is some context that I am just not picking up on.

[Redoubts]

Dunno, I can only hazard thinking ‘intentionally underpowered to force our developers to think more ‘