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Here's how I like to put it: "No one faults a mechanic for buying high-end tools and top of the line equipment. I program for a living, how is buying an expensi

Here's how I like to put it: "No one faults a mechanic for buying high-end tools and top of the line equipment. I program for a living, how is buying an expensive computer any different"?

__d 5y ago
Oh, but they do! The cost of cheap tools can be a fraction of a well-made tool. On paper (ie. the only way in which a manager can compare them) they have identical functionality. So why spend 100x more? Even if you then have to replace them more often, it's not likely that they need to be replaced 100x more often. And even if they do, that's not in this year's budget, so you can deal with that problem later, while saving a bunch now. The intangible cost of crappy tools is very hard to measure in a way that can compete with the dollar cost in a manger's mind. And so similarly, you get two extremes of developer culture: Aeron chairs, standing desks, subtle lighting, and good machines or crappy desks, left-over chairs, 7/11-style lighting, and cheap laptops.
- crate_barre 5y ago
  Some people find it virtuous to make do with a lesser whatever. This can happen for a number of reasons, usually a very painful personal experience or a type of severe brainwashing (your parents convince you walking a mile to school is virtuous, so now you do the same). If you find yourself having an eloquent long winded discussion with such a person, explaining to them they aren’t saving money by foregoing the soda at a night out (it’s cheaper to buy water after all), looking around the menu for the best value, half of which they can definitely take home (at this point I start to wonder if it’s theater, and even if it is theater, you’d have to be sick to even take part in such theatrics), I don’t know, what’s there to discuss. You almost want to throw a wad of $500 at their face.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  I like the strategy Adam Savage follows: Buy the cheap tool! If it breaks, throw it away and buy the expensive one instead. This is a self-optimising strategy where he has cheap tools where it doesn't matter, and expensive tools where it does. While this kind of approach can work very well, it doesn't translate well to the world of "corporate drone doing software development on company equipment" because: 1. Development don't have a nice clear "break" signal, they just introduce friction. Lots of small frictions, each maybe just a fraction of a second, too difficult to measure. 2. The entire problem is that unlike Adam working in his own shop, in charge of his own tools, most corporate developers get very little choice in their tools.

Here's how I like to put it: "No one faults a mechanic for buying high-end tools and top of the line equipment. I program for a living, how is buying an expensive computer any different"?

__d 5y ago

Oh, but they do! The cost of cheap tools can be a fraction of a well-made tool. On paper (ie. the only way in which a manager can compare them) they have identical functionality. So why spend 100x more? Even if you then have to replace them more often, it's not likely that they need to be replaced 100x more often. And even if they do, that's not in this year's budget, so you can deal with that problem later, while saving a bunch now. The intangible cost of crappy tools is very hard to measure in a way that can compete with the dollar cost in a manger's mind. And so similarly, you get two extremes of developer culture: Aeron chairs, standing desks, subtle lighting, and good machines or crappy desks, left-over chairs, 7/11-style lighting, and cheap laptops.

crate_barre 5y ago
Some people find it virtuous to make do with a lesser whatever. This can happen for a number of reasons, usually a very painful personal experience or a type of severe brainwashing (your parents convince you walking a mile to school is virtuous, so now you do the same). If you find yourself having an eloquent long winded discussion with such a person, explaining to them they aren’t saving money by foregoing the soda at a night out (it’s cheaper to buy water after all), looking around the menu for the best value, half of which they can definitely take home (at this point I start to wonder if it’s theater, and even if it is theater, you’d have to be sick to even take part in such theatrics), I don’t know, what’s there to discuss. You almost want to throw a wad of $500 at their face.
jiggawatts 5y ago
I like the strategy Adam Savage follows: Buy the cheap tool! If it breaks, throw it away and buy the expensive one instead. This is a self-optimising strategy where he has cheap tools where it doesn't matter, and expensive tools where it does. While this kind of approach can work very well, it doesn't translate well to the world of "corporate drone doing software development on company equipment" because: 1. Development don't have a nice clear "break" signal, they just introduce friction. Lots of small frictions, each maybe just a fraction of a second, too difficult to measure. 2. The entire problem is that unlike Adam working in his own shop, in charge of his own tools, most corporate developers get very little choice in their tools.