[julianeon]

I think the main thing you're looking for is 1) RAM - as much as you can get for your buck (might be worth lurking for a week to find out how much that is) 2) SSD.

If you get a high number on 1 and a checkmark on 2, it's almost guaranteed to be good for programming - realistically, for allowing you to run your browsers and something like GIMP and/or video editing.

I have a ThinkPad with 32 GB RAM and it takes a really heavy workload to pause my computer.

I frequently have several browsers & several browser windows open (say 6 windows total, mix of Chrome Brave and Firefox), and GIMP. No slowdowns noticeable (EDIT: some things do take a few seconds, like filters & exporting images from GIMP). Most importantly, using my window manager, I can switch from a full-screen browser to Emacs to GIMP instantaneously - not even a millisecond of noticeable delay.

Even many new computers purchased today can't beat that.