u/EngineerRemy
EngineerRemy
EngineerRemy
RAM would be the most important. It depends a bit on your study, but in general 16GB ram should be enough to deal with any program you could create or tooling you have to use. Honestly, even 8GB should be doable, but you'll notice it when working wirh the heavier software.
Next is a bit for personal preference, but I'd say get as large of a screen as you can manage and carry comfortably. It can really make a difference, especially when you're already fighting for space on a small laptop screen.
Lastly, battery life could be a big deal depending on your commute and living situation. My work laptop hardly makes it 2 hours on battery, and it is definitely a pain point when travelling by train or just wanting to work in a different area than at the desk.
Rest of the things aren't super important if you ask me. SSD is nice, more storage is nice, but if you're on a budget these can be neglected. Just don't do what my dumbass did in college and buy a touch screen laptop; The sun will be your enemy.
TDD is relevant in anything development-related. Creating something you can test means you can prove something works, to both yourself and others.
I think the issue people tend to face with implementing is misunderstanding "writing a test before writing your code", which can be a big turn off as you don't know how your code will look like.
It is not something you have to follow down to the letter. I haven't seen a single 1:1 theoretical SCRUM implementation either for example, yet I've been using that methodology my entire career.
What I try to say is, adopt the mindset. Develop code with the idea of how to (automatically) test it in mind. Then you're already doing TDD even if it's not visible.