4 ms·

I don't see it as a disconnect, my baker friends seldom buy bread and I suspect jewelers seldom buy jewelry for example. Why buy when you can make?

sxg 6y ago
Because you can’t make every tool you’ll need to program effectively. Unlike bread, which only takes hours to make, good tooling will take months to years if done yourself.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Yeah, but a baker also can’t make one loaf of bread that everyone can then eat forever. In software, you actually can have your cake and eat it, too.
wodenokoto 6y ago
That is not my impression at all. All the chefs I know go out to eat way more than anyone else I know (don't know any bakers, though). Graphic designers I know, buy art and graphic designs (don't know any jewelers, either). Musician friends buy tons of records and tickets to live shows, friends who brew, buy more beer than friends who don't brew.
- DistressedDrone 6y ago
  I can't deny that this is plausible (in general I mean, not just your specific experience). So what makes our professions so different?
  - deviantfero 6y ago
    You can make unlimited copies of software would be my first guess
  - randomdata 6y ago
    I imagine people who like to make things but don't like to spend money are attracted to software in particular because it is one of the few things that one can make with very little investment. Many of us may have found different loves if other hobbies weren't so expensive. This, perhaps, biases the type of person you find in the profession.
- Spivak 6y ago
  Software is a fun field where the people who make it want to consume as little of it as possible.
- novok 6y ago
  You hit the point on the head. The chefs might go out of their way to buy their direct product (consumer software, like games or hardware, like ipads) but would not buy a shit ton of kitchen pots beyond the basics. I have a family member who's a young musician, and he says musicians don't really care about audiophile grade speakers or headphones really.
agumonkey 6y ago
to me it's more like "the value of this thing i do is for others to be happy"
jariel 6y ago
The disconnect I don't think is about protecting their turf. I think it's mostly about 1) not having an instinct for how powerful the tools are and 2) not being able to internalize the value of leverage vs. cost. $1000/year 'feels' expensive to a developer. That's 'a lot of money'. But if it makes you >1% more productive, it's worth it. Some of these tools are not just productivity enhancements but multipliers. But that takes a different kind of intuition that very few people have naturally, you kind of have to be in a position to make those decisions. Those that have the instinct often are not programming.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > But if it makes you >1% more productive, it's worth it. For an individual, it depends on whether your compensation is tied closely to productivity or multiplication.Being 1% more productive is not going to get your average person anything in a corporate environment.
  - jariel 6y ago
    "What's in it for me? Right now? In the short term?" is not very civic posture. The 'bigger the corp' the 'bigger the productivity gains' available to the team and customers. A 1% gain would probably be worthwhile though it's probably the purview of a director or CTO, that said, developers are part of the process. Making little productivity gains here and there is literally how the world moves forward. It's why we are wiping our rears with toilet paper and not seashells. One of the commenters made the point that 'such tools are not always very useful' which is entirely reasonable, but to the extent they are, the math works. In an adjacent area - we use Jira, which we all loathe, but it's considerably better than nothing for example, it does the job and it's worth 20x the meagre cost to us. Such is an example of productivity leverage. (And of course, it's not always the case that it works out so well)
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  I’ve paid for various tools over the years: ultimately, I’ve never really found that the commercial tools are significantly better for the problems I have. I’ve generally found that Emacs and/or Unix shell utilities make it really easy to make a tool that solves exactly the problem you have while commercial tools end up having frustrating limitations or are really hard to learn because they solve the general case instead of the 70% case that you actually have.

sxg 6y ago

Because you can’t make every tool you’ll need to program effectively. Unlike bread, which only takes hours to make, good tooling will take months to years if done yourself.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cortesoft 6y ago
Yeah, but a baker also can’t make one loaf of bread that everyone can then eat forever. In software, you actually can have your cake and eat it, too.

wodenokoto 6y ago

That is not my impression at all. All the chefs I know go out to eat way more than anyone else I know (don't know any bakers, though). Graphic designers I know, buy art and graphic designs (don't know any jewelers, either). Musician friends buy tons of records and tickets to live shows, friends who brew, buy more beer than friends who don't brew.

DistressedDrone 6y ago
I can't deny that this is plausible (in general I mean, not just your specific experience). So what makes our professions so different?
- deviantfero 6y ago
  You can make unlimited copies of software would be my first guess
- randomdata 6y ago
  I imagine people who like to make things but don't like to spend money are attracted to software in particular because it is one of the few things that one can make with very little investment. Many of us may have found different loves if other hobbies weren't so expensive. This, perhaps, biases the type of person you find in the profession.
Spivak 6y ago
Software is a fun field where the people who make it want to consume as little of it as possible.
novok 6y ago
You hit the point on the head. The chefs might go out of their way to buy their direct product (consumer software, like games or hardware, like ipads) but would not buy a shit ton of kitchen pots beyond the basics. I have a family member who's a young musician, and he says musicians don't really care about audiophile grade speakers or headphones really.

agumonkey 6y ago

to me it's more like "the value of this thing i do is for others to be happy"

jariel 6y ago

The disconnect I don't think is about protecting their turf. I think it's mostly about 1) not having an instinct for how powerful the tools are and 2) not being able to internalize the value of leverage vs. cost. $1000/year 'feels' expensive to a developer. That's 'a lot of money'. But if it makes you >1% more productive, it's worth it. Some of these tools are not just productivity enhancements but multipliers. But that takes a different kind of intuition that very few people have naturally, you kind of have to be in a position to make those decisions. Those that have the instinct often are not programming.

MattGaiser 6y ago
> But if it makes you >1% more productive, it's worth it. For an individual, it depends on whether your compensation is tied closely to productivity or multiplication.Being 1% more productive is not going to get your average person anything in a corporate environment.
- jariel 6y ago
  "What's in it for me? Right now? In the short term?" is not very civic posture. The 'bigger the corp' the 'bigger the productivity gains' available to the team and customers. A 1% gain would probably be worthwhile though it's probably the purview of a director or CTO, that said, developers are part of the process. Making little productivity gains here and there is literally how the world moves forward. It's why we are wiping our rears with toilet paper and not seashells. One of the commenters made the point that 'such tools are not always very useful' which is entirely reasonable, but to the extent they are, the math works. In an adjacent area - we use Jira, which we all loathe, but it's considerably better than nothing for example, it does the job and it's worth 20x the meagre cost to us. Such is an example of productivity leverage. (And of course, it's not always the case that it works out so well)
fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
I’ve paid for various tools over the years: ultimately, I’ve never really found that the commercial tools are significantly better for the problems I have. I’ve generally found that Emacs and/or Unix shell utilities make it really easy to make a tool that solves exactly the problem you have while commercial tools end up having frustrating limitations or are really hard to learn because they solve the general case instead of the 70% case that you actually have.