Re: Re: Information gathering exercise

On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:12 AM, Jeroen Wenting
<[email protected]> wrote:
>> Hello, Jeroen.  On Monday, February 22, 2010, at 12:14:14 AM, you
>> wrote:
>>
>>> He should get used to having less powerful machines at work than he's
>>> used
>>> to having at home for his gaming and internet use.
>>> That's almost always been the case for the last decade or more, at least
>>> for technical/dev staff (see my earlier reply for what I've seen
>>> happening
>>> for upgrade cycles in several places I've worked).

I'm going to have to stick my $0.02 in.  I didn't comment to that
message, but those upgrade cycles just don't match anything I've ever
seen.  It's been my experience that dev teams usually get new
computers, rotating through some level of seniority.  Most of us don't
*want* to change, because it wastes so much time getting our
individual development environment set back up.

The "old" computer seems to get rotated down to whoever [on the dev
team] needs it the most, and his computer either gets put out to
pasture or handed down to someone like the CEO.

And for something like a centralized build server?  I've never seen a
company skimp on one of those.  (Well, I have...until we pointed out
that a build was taking 6 hours).

> You know full well that the machines he uses are not only above average
> for what's being used in the industry as a whole

I'm tempted to get snarky over this comment, but I won't.

Maybe in the "industry as a whole" in your country.  Or maybe for some
specific industry?  But my experience hasn't matched yours at all.
I've rarely had cutting-edge gaming-level hardware, but I usually have
something fairly comparable to the latest $500 offering from Dell.




> but more than adequate
> for just about any professional level development


That's a complete crock.  It depends on what kind of development
you're doing and what environment you're doing it in. For that matter,
it can depend on the size of your source code files.

Someone doing Sharepoint development is going to need much better
hardware than someone developing for embedded Linux.  One size does
not fit all.

If your computer's so slow that it wastes a lot of your time, then
there's a good chance upgrading it will pay for itself very quickly.
Especially if you take things like "flow" into account.  Of course,
you have to be a good enough communicator to teach your boss about
flow, because s/he's probably never run across the phrase.


> (unless MAYBE he's a
> graphics artist and 3D modeller for a major game studio, in which case a
> quad code iMac Pro would serve him better).

Ironically enough, our 3D modeller does get frequent upgrades to
bleeding edge tech (I know...big shock).  But he's a Windows kind of
guy.

Then again, we're nothing like a major game studio.



> I see his question as similar to having a 2 year old BMW 3 series car from
> the company and complaining you're not getting a brand new Ferrari every 6
> months.

Except that he admitted his computer was cutting edge 7 human years ago.

In computer years, that's something like forever.

Now, on the flip side of this, I *don't* think developers should be
using the latest and greatest hardware.  I suspect part of the reason
so much modern software is so slow and bloated is that the developers
have hardware that's so much better than the average end-user.  But
that's a different conversation.

Regards,
James