I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011) with 8GB of RAM. As I need quite a few memory thirsty applications I have reached a point where 8GB is not enough. The official documentation of the Mac says that it supports up to 8GB. So I need to buy a new laptop?

Apparently not! It seems that the laptop supports 16GB of RAM, but not officially (from Apple). Crucial provides a system scanner, which scans your systems and suggests for compatible memory. It suggested a kit of 16GB memory. I have ordered it and I am waiting to install. The link for the scanner: http://eu.crucial.com/eur/en/systemscanner