4 ms·

> 10 minutes of lost productivity a day due to inadequate hardware means you are paying at least $4k per year per dev for that shit pile of a laptop. This only

> 10 minutes of lost productivity a day due to inadequate hardware means you are paying at least $4k per year per dev for that shit pile of a laptop. This only holds true if your developers are 100% efficient programming every second the machine is running. But let's face it. The first hour of the day is most certainly not the most productive (10 minute boot? fine, I'll make coffee meanwhile). You could easily schedule a meeting, like a stand-up, while the machines fire up, if those 10 minutes really would be necessary.

jacobsenscott 8y ago
It is more like - this tests takes just long enough that I can jump over to hacker news for a few minutes...
michaelmrose 8y ago
Mathematically flawed there is no reason to suspect you can subtract the time spent waiting for the computer from the time already wasted whereas actually inefficiency from poor hardware is distributed throughout the day including productive periods. You would actually multiply a percentage of inefficiency x hours worked. Also honestly human beings doing intellectual work can't just do something else for 10 minutes and lose zero productivity because intellectual work is fundamentally dissimilar from assembling widgets OR managerial work. Consider reading http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html because you fundamentally don't understand how people work and can't be a good manager without at least attempting to understand.
- lightedman 8y ago
  Read it, almost everything written applies mostly to the IT industry. It does NOT operate anywhere near like that in any warehouse, full-bore semiconductor manufacturing, or even fast food job I've ever had. What may apply to one person or industry absolutely does not apply to them all. And to boot - I'm the GM of a very, very large solar company.
- dna_polymerase 8y ago
  > Also honestly human beings doing intellectual work can't just do something else for 10 minutes and lose zero productivity because intellectual work is fundamentally dissimilar from assembling widgets OR managerial work. Yup, I'm talking about the beginning of the work day. Nothing productive would be interrupted. > Consider reading http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html because you fundamentally don't understand how people work and can't be a good manager without at least attempting to understand. I have no idea how you got to your conclusions about me by reading my comment but thanks for judging. Regarding this piece by PG, did you read it? Because it actually supports my claim, to schedule a meeting in the beginning of the day, while machines would boot, in order to save the precious time in between start and beginning of the work day.
  - michaelmrose 8y ago
    To reiterate the prior poster claimed that 10 minutes of lost productivity could cost more than the devs desired computer. You said that this calculation is erroneous because the developer could easily make coffee or have a meeting while his machine boots up and thereby recover that lost time. This is a very puzzling suggestion. Slow machines aren't merely slow the start they are slow to complete user operations while the user is sitting at the machine awaiting the result. The time cost is the sum of 1000 small delays throughout the day. You can't productively fill the extra 30 seconds you spent waiting 20 times with a meeting for example. In fact acceptable hardware/software wakes from sleep in a second or cold boots in 30-90 seconds. Boot up isn't really the problem. You said >Because it actually supports my claim, to schedule a meeting in the beginning of the day What the actual article says >Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet founders we've funded. These chunks of time are at the end of my working day, and I wrote a signup program that ensures all the appointments within a given set of office hours are clustered at the end. Because they come at the end of my day these meetings are never an interruption. PG actually suggested meeting at the end of the productive day to avoid breaking up productive working time. I suggest you read it instead of skim it.
    - dna_polymerase 8y ago

jacobsenscott 8y ago

It is more like - this tests takes just long enough that I can jump over to hacker news for a few minutes...

michaelmrose 8y ago

Mathematically flawed there is no reason to suspect you can subtract the time spent waiting for the computer from the time already wasted whereas actually inefficiency from poor hardware is distributed throughout the day including productive periods. You would actually multiply a percentage of inefficiency x hours worked. Also honestly human beings doing intellectual work can't just do something else for 10 minutes and lose zero productivity because intellectual work is fundamentally dissimilar from assembling widgets OR managerial work. Consider reading http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html because you fundamentally don't understand how people work and can't be a good manager without at least attempting to understand.

lightedman 8y ago
Read it, almost everything written applies mostly to the IT industry. It does NOT operate anywhere near like that in any warehouse, full-bore semiconductor manufacturing, or even fast food job I've ever had. What may apply to one person or industry absolutely does not apply to them all. And to boot - I'm the GM of a very, very large solar company.
dna_polymerase 8y ago
> Also honestly human beings doing intellectual work can't just do something else for 10 minutes and lose zero productivity because intellectual work is fundamentally dissimilar from assembling widgets OR managerial work. Yup, I'm talking about the beginning of the work day. Nothing productive would be interrupted. > Consider reading http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html because you fundamentally don't understand how people work and can't be a good manager without at least attempting to understand. I have no idea how you got to your conclusions about me by reading my comment but thanks for judging. Regarding this piece by PG, did you read it? Because it actually supports my claim, to schedule a meeting in the beginning of the day, while machines would boot, in order to save the precious time in between start and beginning of the work day.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  To reiterate the prior poster claimed that 10 minutes of lost productivity could cost more than the devs desired computer. You said that this calculation is erroneous because the developer could easily make coffee or have a meeting while his machine boots up and thereby recover that lost time. This is a very puzzling suggestion. Slow machines aren't merely slow the start they are slow to complete user operations while the user is sitting at the machine awaiting the result. The time cost is the sum of 1000 small delays throughout the day. You can't productively fill the extra 30 seconds you spent waiting 20 times with a meeting for example. In fact acceptable hardware/software wakes from sleep in a second or cold boots in 30-90 seconds. Boot up isn't really the problem. You said >Because it actually supports my claim, to schedule a meeting in the beginning of the day What the actual article says >Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet founders we've funded. These chunks of time are at the end of my working day, and I wrote a signup program that ensures all the appointments within a given set of office hours are clustered at the end. Because they come at the end of my day these meetings are never an interruption. PG actually suggested meeting at the end of the productive day to avoid breaking up productive working time. I suggest you read it instead of skim it.
  - dna_polymerase 8y ago