5 ms·

How many dev shops still give everyone workstations? Our company is entirely on laptops and I don't know a single person here that wants a workstation.

MrFoof 15y ago
Depends on the shop, and the needs of that shop. If your development necessitates that you run one or more virtual machines on a consistent basis, the 8GB memory limitation of most laptops bites your hand almost immediately. If you work on VLDBs, the lack of storage and I/O bites your hand almost immediately. If your developers largely don't need to be mobile, you're paying a significant premium for mobility and sacrificing power when those sacrifices aren't necessary. If you develop games or iPad applications, the lack of display real estate annoys the crap out of you almost immediately. Different strokes for different folks.
kenjackson 15y ago
I can't do serious dev work on a laptop. Too underpowered. Everyone here gets a laptop, but it's for working in bed, or on the road, at your child's birth, etc... But for day to day dev work, a high-end workstation is a fair bit more productive. At least for the type of dev work we do.
- phuff 15y ago
  I sure hope they give you some time off at your child's birth... :)
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Didn't he just have some time off nine months ago?
- nandemo 15y ago
  For me the main problem with laptops is the bad ergonomics.
  - rickmb 15y ago
    An external keyboard, monitor and mouse. In which way does the ergonomics differ from a fixed workstation?
    - psykotic 15y ago
      At that point you're left with an underpowered desktop experience. It obviously depends on what work you're doing, but I'm happy with my desktop machine with 12 cores and 24 gigabytes of memory and wouldn't switch to a laptop for anything in the world. I have my personal MacBook Pro I can use when working from home or when travelling but it's definitely a second-class experience. The downside is that a high-end dual-processor Xeon and a compatible motherboard costs a big chunk of Fog Creek's whole per-programmer equipment budget. If you're working on web apps, it probably wouldn't be worth it.
    - chollida1 15y ago
      > In which way does the ergonomics differ from a fixed workstation? I'm assuming she/he meant when the laptop keyboard and trackpad are used.
- seanalltogether 15y ago
  We do client work that encompasses everything, C++, ObjC, Java backends, Java Frontends, Flash, HTML/JS, etc. I'm not sure what serious dev work implies?
  - groby_b 15y ago
    Try compiling any _large_ project on your machine. Say, Webkit. Come back and tell me how much fun that was :) Kidding aside, if you have to dig into large-scale projects or heavy computational stuff, a laptop is underpowered. Thankfully, not everybody needs to do that. But even for day-to-day work - how can you live with 15" of screen real estate? Without an ergo keyboard?
pavel_lishin 15y ago
I'm on a laptop with two monitors. I don't need a workstation, I need a place to put all this stuff down. (I do also have a desktop. I don't know if the monitor is plugged in - I do everything on it via command line. It's handy for VMs, as other people mentioned, and other semi-work-related things.)
ry0ohki 15y ago
Joel doesn't believe in telecommuting. One way to ensure it stays that way is workstations. (And if you can't work from home, you do get more power for less money in a workstation)
- spolsky 15y ago
  Some corrections: (1) it doesn't matter what I believe in. We now have telecommuters at both Stack Exchange and Fog Creek and for the right individual, it's fine. (2) this doesn't follow. Do you really think we give people desktop computers simply to make it impossible for them to work from home? That's silly. Anyway, the telecommuters we do have almost exclusively use desktop computers. You know why? Because once you've programmed on a 30" monitor, you'll never go back to programming on a laptop.
  - ry0ohki 15y ago
    I actually program on a 30" monitor connected to a laptop, so that doesn't follow either... edit also I guess I stand corrected on point 1, I wasn't trying to be rude, but you had in the past said telecommuting was essentially against what you were trying to build as a team at FogCreek.
  - damoncali 15y ago
    Because once you've programmed on a 30" monitor, you'll never go back to programming on a laptop. Total sidebar, but I actually have found 30" to be too big. I could not get my neck to stop hurting from trying to use the whole screen, and wound up using the innermost 23-24". So I ditched it for a 23" monitor. Was I doing something wrong? I really wanted to like the 30", but I just couldn't get it to work without putting it too far away from me to see normal sized fonts. Anyone else run into this problem?
    - xiaomai 15y ago
      I'm on a 24", so I can't speak from experience. It sounds like you maybe just needed to sit further away from the monitor though (some desks obviously wouldn't permit this).
sp332 15y ago
I have a laptop. I think I'd rather have a workstation, or at least: more RAM & CPU cores (for VMs), a faster hard drive, a taller monitor with a lot more pixels, a mouse with a scroll wheel, and a numpad. Also more USB ports would be nice.
- seanalltogether 15y ago
  I have a large screen monitor, mouse, and usb hub at my desk that I plug in to when working there.
Tsagadai 15y ago
If you have 32GB of RAM in your workstation, you will find a way to use it. Some laptops are very powerful these days but a desktop or rackmounted box will still be more powerful. That aside, there is another advantage of not using a laptop and that is that you cannot be asked to take work home with you ;).
kozo 15y ago
i dont want a laptop because it means i have to take it home. nope. i would happily accept a nice workstation.

MrFoof 15y ago

Depends on the shop, and the needs of that shop. If your development necessitates that you run one or more virtual machines on a consistent basis, the 8GB memory limitation of most laptops bites your hand almost immediately. If you work on VLDBs, the lack of storage and I/O bites your hand almost immediately. If your developers largely don't need to be mobile, you're paying a significant premium for mobility and sacrificing power when those sacrifices aren't necessary. If you develop games or iPad applications, the lack of display real estate annoys the crap out of you almost immediately. Different strokes for different folks.

kenjackson 15y ago

I can't do serious dev work on a laptop. Too underpowered. Everyone here gets a laptop, but it's for working in bed, or on the road, at your child's birth, etc... But for day to day dev work, a high-end workstation is a fair bit more productive. At least for the type of dev work we do.

phuff 15y ago
I sure hope they give you some time off at your child's birth... :)
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Didn't he just have some time off nine months ago?
nandemo 15y ago
For me the main problem with laptops is the bad ergonomics.
- rickmb 15y ago
  An external keyboard, monitor and mouse. In which way does the ergonomics differ from a fixed workstation?
  - psykotic 15y ago
    At that point you're left with an underpowered desktop experience. It obviously depends on what work you're doing, but I'm happy with my desktop machine with 12 cores and 24 gigabytes of memory and wouldn't switch to a laptop for anything in the world. I have my personal MacBook Pro I can use when working from home or when travelling but it's definitely a second-class experience. The downside is that a high-end dual-processor Xeon and a compatible motherboard costs a big chunk of Fog Creek's whole per-programmer equipment budget. If you're working on web apps, it probably wouldn't be worth it.
  - chollida1 15y ago
    > In which way does the ergonomics differ from a fixed workstation? I'm assuming she/he meant when the laptop keyboard and trackpad are used.
seanalltogether 15y ago
We do client work that encompasses everything, C++, ObjC, Java backends, Java Frontends, Flash, HTML/JS, etc. I'm not sure what serious dev work implies?
- groby_b 15y ago
  Try compiling any _large_ project on your machine. Say, Webkit. Come back and tell me how much fun that was :) Kidding aside, if you have to dig into large-scale projects or heavy computational stuff, a laptop is underpowered. Thankfully, not everybody needs to do that. But even for day-to-day work - how can you live with 15" of screen real estate? Without an ergo keyboard?

pavel_lishin 15y ago

I'm on a laptop with two monitors. I don't need a workstation, I need a place to put all this stuff down. (I do also have a desktop. I don't know if the monitor is plugged in - I do everything on it via command line. It's handy for VMs, as other people mentioned, and other semi-work-related things.)

ry0ohki 15y ago

Joel doesn't believe in telecommuting. One way to ensure it stays that way is workstations. (And if you can't work from home, you do get more power for less money in a workstation)

spolsky 15y ago
Some corrections: (1) it doesn't matter what I believe in. We now have telecommuters at both Stack Exchange and Fog Creek and for the right individual, it's fine. (2) this doesn't follow. Do you really think we give people desktop computers simply to make it impossible for them to work from home? That's silly. Anyway, the telecommuters we do have almost exclusively use desktop computers. You know why? Because once you've programmed on a 30" monitor, you'll never go back to programming on a laptop.
- ry0ohki 15y ago
  I actually program on a 30" monitor connected to a laptop, so that doesn't follow either... edit also I guess I stand corrected on point 1, I wasn't trying to be rude, but you had in the past said telecommuting was essentially against what you were trying to build as a team at FogCreek.
- damoncali 15y ago
  Because once you've programmed on a 30" monitor, you'll never go back to programming on a laptop. Total sidebar, but I actually have found 30" to be too big. I could not get my neck to stop hurting from trying to use the whole screen, and wound up using the innermost 23-24". So I ditched it for a 23" monitor. Was I doing something wrong? I really wanted to like the 30", but I just couldn't get it to work without putting it too far away from me to see normal sized fonts. Anyone else run into this problem?
  - xiaomai 15y ago
    I'm on a 24", so I can't speak from experience. It sounds like you maybe just needed to sit further away from the monitor though (some desks obviously wouldn't permit this).

sp332 15y ago

I have a laptop. I think I'd rather have a workstation, or at least: more RAM & CPU cores (for VMs), a faster hard drive, a taller monitor with a lot more pixels, a mouse with a scroll wheel, and a numpad. Also more USB ports would be nice.

seanalltogether 15y ago
I have a large screen monitor, mouse, and usb hub at my desk that I plug in to when working there.

Tsagadai 15y ago

If you have 32GB of RAM in your workstation, you will find a way to use it. Some laptops are very powerful these days but a desktop or rackmounted box will still be more powerful. That aside, there is another advantage of not using a laptop and that is that you cannot be asked to take work home with you ;).

kozo 15y ago

i dont want a laptop because it means i have to take it home. nope. i would happily accept a nice workstation.