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I could never understand this point of view. Can you elaborate? Windows tax amounts to about 30% bump in AWS ec2 costs. Typical CRUD startup will have their co

by DenisM 8y ago

I could never understand this point of view. Can you elaborate? Windows tax amounts to about 30% bump in AWS ec2 costs. Typical CRUD startup will have their costs dominated by payroll, not hosting. If I can get my engineers 3% more efficient at the cost of making my hosting 30% more expensive I will do this in a heartbeat. What is the situation where you experience onerous Windows tax?

mattchamb 8y ago
I say this as a .net dev, but when I look at hosting stuff for myself, the few extra dollars influence my decision.
h4b4n3r0 8y ago
Why do you think they will be more (as opposed to less) efficent? Also, particular stacks attract a particular type of developer, and some are better than others. In particular, a lot of the ones that are good have been switching to Linux for the past decade and a half, and once you do that, going back to Windows is such a non-starter. It also doesn't help that Windows dev work typically pays substantially less. Stacks also have the varying number of "batteries" included, and on Linux, the Microsoft stack comes with very few "batteries".
__sr__ 8y ago
> If I can get my engineers 3% more efficient at the cost of making my hosting 30% more expensive I will do this in a heartbeat. How do you quantify engineers’ productivity? A Java or a Python developer (much easier to find than a .NET developer) will be a lot more productive in Java or Python. And it is not a universal fact that .NET developers are more productive than others. Python developers would argue the other way round.
- DenisM 8y ago
  Who said anything about universal facts? I said if my engineers will be more productive then I will make that choice. Note the “if”. Point is - if a team is more productive using python they should use python. If it’s c# then they should use c#. Licensing cost doesn’t figure into the decision. People who complain about exorbitant licensing cost leave me confused because I do t see those costs.
  - __sr__ 8y ago
    And my point is — how do you, as a startup founder, judge whether .NET — or any other platform, for that matter — increases your developers’ productivity by N percent? You certainly don’t have the time or resources to build the MVP on every major platform and measure. More often than not, startups go with whatever their first few developers are comfortable with. And, once you have started with Java/Python, why would you want to spend your money on licensing costs AND .NET developers who, from personal experience, often tend to be more expensive and harder to hire than Java/Python/Go developers? Licensing costs don’t matter a lot if you already have a team that is proficient in .NET. It’s a Catch-22 situation. Why would want to spend money on building a team of .NET developers in the first place unless you have some hard evidence that using .NET is going to help your business significantly?

by DenisM 8y ago

mattchamb 8y ago

I say this as a .net dev, but when I look at hosting stuff for myself, the few extra dollars influence my decision.

h4b4n3r0 8y ago

Why do you think they will be more (as opposed to less) efficent? Also, particular stacks attract a particular type of developer, and some are better than others. In particular, a lot of the ones that are good have been switching to Linux for the past decade and a half, and once you do that, going back to Windows is such a non-starter. It also doesn't help that Windows dev work typically pays substantially less. Stacks also have the varying number of "batteries" included, and on Linux, the Microsoft stack comes with very few "batteries".

__sr__ 8y ago

> If I can get my engineers 3% more efficient at the cost of making my hosting 30% more expensive I will do this in a heartbeat. How do you quantify engineers’ productivity? A Java or a Python developer (much easier to find than a .NET developer) will be a lot more productive in Java or Python. And it is not a universal fact that .NET developers are more productive than others. Python developers would argue the other way round.

DenisM 8y ago
Who said anything about universal facts? I said if my engineers will be more productive then I will make that choice. Note the “if”. Point is - if a team is more productive using python they should use python. If it’s c# then they should use c#. Licensing cost doesn’t figure into the decision. People who complain about exorbitant licensing cost leave me confused because I do t see those costs.
- __sr__ 8y ago
  And my point is — how do you, as a startup founder, judge whether .NET — or any other platform, for that matter — increases your developers’ productivity by N percent? You certainly don’t have the time or resources to build the MVP on every major platform and measure. More often than not, startups go with whatever their first few developers are comfortable with. And, once you have started with Java/Python, why would you want to spend your money on licensing costs AND .NET developers who, from personal experience, often tend to be more expensive and harder to hire than Java/Python/Go developers? Licensing costs don’t matter a lot if you already have a team that is proficient in .NET. It’s a Catch-22 situation. Why would want to spend money on building a team of .NET developers in the first place unless you have some hard evidence that using .NET is going to help your business significantly?