What to do with an old MacBook Air (and a new one)

Having just taken delivery of a stonkingly beautiful new MacBook Air I face two big decisions.

Drafts, or Not?

I’ve heard all sorts of praise for Drafts as a terrific writing app that can do all sorts of interesting things. So far, I have resisted that siren song, arguing that I know and love Byword and that, together with Marked2, it serves all my plain text writing needs. (I do also use Folding Text from time to time, and The Archive, but not as much as Byword). Now, with a new portable machine that I am setting up from scratch, maybe it is time to tackle Drafts. Or maybe that is just another form of productivity procrastination.

A Python Playground?

A few times lately I have found myself in a terrible mess while trying to improve my little Python programs. Things that cannot be found, even though I know they must be somewhere, and a huge mess of different environments. The usual reason: a little learning. I installed Anaconda because the professor told me to, without understanding what it was for or how to use it properly. Then I tried doing things without and that just kept making things worse. In the end I made a bit of an effort to learn how to use virtual envionments, but I still get into horrible trouble from time to time. So I’m wondering, is it worth turning either the old MacBook Air or even the new one into a dedicated Python playground? I would be starting from scratch and so, perhaps, less likely to get into a mess. But then, I would also have to learn how to bundle scripts up so that they will work wherever.