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> Developers are expensive. If a new IDE shows up and they can deliver stuff 5% faster, that means you can have 5% less programmers! Of course the IDE has a pri

> Developers are expensive. If a new IDE shows up and they can deliver stuff 5% faster, that means you can have 5% less programmers! Of course the IDE has a price, but it is almost certainly cheaper than 5% of a developer. Dev work is nebulous enough that very few companies seem willing to invest in dev tooling. I've heard nothing but good things about JRebel for example and how it keeps people focused instead of sword fighting during long builds. I am aware of one company that uses it, and they only allow it for senior devs.

withinboredom 5y ago
I’m aloud to pretty much expense any tool at work as long as I can justify it. I’ve never been asked to justify it, but that’s the rule. I think I probably expense a hundred bucks a month on tools.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Please make a list for the rest of us and post about it.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    I shared it in a sibling comment.
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  Care to share which tools are these? I've been in the field for several years and can't remember the last time I shelled money for a tool. What cool stuff am I missing?
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    Mostly ngrok, grammarly (for documentation), postman and IntelliJ.
sp332 5y ago
If you just made all your programers 5% faster, they are each more productive. Now you should hire more programmers because there's a wider range of things they can profitably work on.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  In essence, Jevon's paradox - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox - where in certain conditions (which plausibly apply to programmers) increasing efficiency results in an increase of consumption, not a reduction of it.
- baron816 5y ago
  Yes, this. There are a lot of engineers out there that spend a most of their time in meetings, or writing design docs, or reviewing code, or a few dozen other thing that are not actually writing code. Much of that can’t be automated away. If you could get a machine to do much of the programming, that just leaves you with more time to work on the harder problems the business has to deal with, which likely means you’re able to deliver more value, and thus deserve more money. And just think about it, what were Cobol and Fortran developers paid way back in the day? Not nearly as much as an engineer with comparable experience and education as someone today. They were also far rarer in breed. Engineers are paid much more today because the better tools we have now make us more productive and more capable of unlocking business value. Paying an engineer $500K today is worth it if they’re able to unlock $5 million in profits.

withinboredom 5y ago

I’m aloud to pretty much expense any tool at work as long as I can justify it. I’ve never been asked to justify it, but that’s the rule. I think I probably expense a hundred bucks a month on tools.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Please make a list for the rest of us and post about it.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  I shared it in a sibling comment.
toomanydoubts 5y ago
Care to share which tools are these? I've been in the field for several years and can't remember the last time I shelled money for a tool. What cool stuff am I missing?
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Mostly ngrok, grammarly (for documentation), postman and IntelliJ.

sp332 5y ago

If you just made all your programers 5% faster, they are each more productive. Now you should hire more programmers because there's a wider range of things they can profitably work on.

PeterisP 5y ago
In essence, Jevon's paradox - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox - where in certain conditions (which plausibly apply to programmers) increasing efficiency results in an increase of consumption, not a reduction of it.
baron816 5y ago
Yes, this. There are a lot of engineers out there that spend a most of their time in meetings, or writing design docs, or reviewing code, or a few dozen other thing that are not actually writing code. Much of that can’t be automated away. If you could get a machine to do much of the programming, that just leaves you with more time to work on the harder problems the business has to deal with, which likely means you’re able to deliver more value, and thus deserve more money. And just think about it, what were Cobol and Fortran developers paid way back in the day? Not nearly as much as an engineer with comparable experience and education as someone today. They were also far rarer in breed. Engineers are paid much more today because the better tools we have now make us more productive and more capable of unlocking business value. Paying an engineer $500K today is worth it if they’re able to unlock $5 million in profits.