5 ms·

Is 12 junior dev-days a lot of money for a software development tool? A single junior dev costs 20x as much per year. Is having 5% more junior devs on your team

by Veserv 3y ago

Is 12 junior dev-days a lot of money for a software development tool? A single junior dev costs 20x as much per year. Is having 5% more junior devs on your team better than better tooling for the other 95% of the team? I can see how it might be a impediment for tinkering and hobbyists, but it is a pittance for any commercial usage.

rowanG077 3y ago
Where are 12 junior dev days worth more then 20k? Not even in silicon valley salaries are that insane. Relying on proprietary technology is in itself a pretty large risk regardless of the monetary cost.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  In countries where seniors cost 100+ €/$ per hour in project costs. Do the monthly math for respective FTE costs.
  - rowanG077 3y ago
    How does the cost of a senior factor into it? This is about junior cost. Besides even at 100+ €/$ per hour you don't come close to 20k after 12 days.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      It was to make a measurement point, it comes to 9600, with some typical rounding adjustments as buffer, 10 000. Which is half of it, although in projects where Oracle licences are rounding errors, I expect much higher rates.
    - coryrc 3y ago
      Employee total burden is about double their take-home pay, so 2 x $100 x 8 x 12 is $19200.
      - jstimpfle 3y ago
        That is a bit much. I believe a factor like 1.2x to 1.5x, depending on the country, is more realistic.
- Veserv 3y ago
  I was using 10 K$ as the baseline. Junior devs make 100-200 K$/yr in salary. The fully burdened cost including overhead and benefits is usually around double that at around 200-300 K$ (higher base compensation usually results in lower proportional overhead). In the US there are ~2000 working hours a year, so that amounts to 100-150 $/hr. There are 8 hours per dev-day, so 96 dev-hours. At 100-150 $/hr that is 9600–14400 $. If you are really obstinate about 20 K$, then just double it and call it 25 junior-dev days. Whoopie, still only 10% of the yearly cost of a junior-dev. Yeah, developers are really expensive. So back to the original question, just minimally changed to account for irrelevant factors of two. Do you think having 10% more junior devs on your team is better than having better tooling for the other 90% of the team?
  - rowanG077 3y ago
    Well then you are still looking at silicon valley level of salaries. The top of the top of the world. Let's take The Netherlands, where I live. A junior dev is expected to make €34,422/year. This is still a western country so let's go somewhere else. In China a junior dev makes about ¥269,904 a year, or $1.806,89. Is this tool worth 5+ man years of a junior dev? If your back of the envelope calculations only barely make sense for a tiny part of the world maybe the pricing is actually insane. edit: ¥269,904 is $37.002. Point still stands. > Do you think having 10% more junior devs on your team is better than having better tooling for the other 90% of the team? The tool would have to be pretty damn good. And also not introduce business risk or at the very least a minimal business risk.
    - OneWingedShark 3y ago
      > The tool would have to be pretty damn good. And also not introduce business risk or at the very least a minimal business risk. That is actually quite possible. Ada is in a really good place as far as that goes: imagine the cost of writing an IDE (to include compiler) for, say, Ada, PL/SQL, and VHDL -- given the common lineage, you could make a custom internal representations (IR), where each language has a 'Subtype' constraint for its particularity (e.g. `Subtype Ada_IR is General_IR with Dynamic_Predicate => Is_Common(Ada_IR) or Is_Ada(Ada_IR);`, and so on for PL/SQL and VHDL), make these IRs with SPARK proving, as you implement PL/SQL and its query-engine also implement SPARK's proof-tools and SMT-interfaces, proving it as you go, next implement and prove code-gen/HW-synth. Now, put the IDE source through the IDE, and BAM! Now you have a proved IDE+compiler for Ada, PL/SQL, and VHDL giving you a very solid platform. (Also, as you would have a DB-engine onboard, you could populate the IDE with templates and run a query like: SELECT Name, Code FROM Entities WHERE Purpose LIKE “%SCSI%”;... or SELECT Name, Purpose FROM Algorithms WHERE Purpose LIKE “%SORT%” AND Ω <= log_2;.) Also, being Ada-based, you could use Ada's Distributed Systems Annex to distribute portions of the IDE, and/or implement CI/CD as per https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/work/papers/icsm87.pdf https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/work/papers/icsm87.pdf
bsder 3y ago
I no longer do proprietary licenses when my ass is on the line. With a proprietary license, you are one set of legal filings away from having the rug pulled out from under you. See: the Our Machinery fiasco. https://www.rfleury.com/p/ships-icebergs-game-engines https://www.rfleury.com/p/ships-icebergs-game-engines Or perhaps I should have linked to all the gnashing of teeth about Unity
- Agingcoder 3y ago
  I’m not sure about this specific contract, but historically speaking, Adacore has sold support contracts, and even if you stop paying, you’re still allowed to use the compiler versions you’ve paid for. Furthermore, since these compilers are all based on upstream, and all Adacore work eventually ends up upstream, there’s essentially no risk you’re going to be left stranded.
- Xylakant 3y ago
  You won’t get around fees paid in the certified compiler world. If you want someone to sign, stamp and deliver paperwork proving that a compiler upholds a standard and likely also take liability for it, you’ll need to pay. Few organizations will take on liability for free. But you can get pretty close, at least in some spaces. Self-certification is always an option. Aerospace will be harder, automotive is annoying but feasible. Ferrocene for one is entirely 100% compatible with the equivalent rust compiler, in fact it is the rust compiler built, qualify-tested, packages and delivered without any significant (1) patches. As such, it’s entirely feasible to use “I’ll just use open source rustc” as an escape hatch. Not a pretty one, self certification is quite a bit of effort, but a bounded one. There’s no magic in what we did, most of it is legwork. We even open sourced the spec that the certification is based on, so you’ll have to do less legwork than we did. This has in fact been a design goal and a requirement of our early customers. I can’t speak to Adacores plans regarding upstream compatibility, I have no insight other than their public statements and they’ve been silent on that matter. (1) a few lines, mostly target support for stuff rustc doesn’t offer in tree Disclosure: I’m one of the founders of Ferrous.

by Veserv 3y ago

rowanG077 3y ago

Where are 12 junior dev days worth more then 20k? Not even in silicon valley salaries are that insane. Relying on proprietary technology is in itself a pretty large risk regardless of the monetary cost.

pjmlp 3y ago
In countries where seniors cost 100+ €/$ per hour in project costs. Do the monthly math for respective FTE costs.
- rowanG077 3y ago
  How does the cost of a senior factor into it? This is about junior cost. Besides even at 100+ €/$ per hour you don't come close to 20k after 12 days.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It was to make a measurement point, it comes to 9600, with some typical rounding adjustments as buffer, 10 000. Which is half of it, although in projects where Oracle licences are rounding errors, I expect much higher rates.
  - coryrc 3y ago
    Employee total burden is about double their take-home pay, so 2 x $100 x 8 x 12 is $19200.
    - jstimpfle 3y ago
      That is a bit much. I believe a factor like 1.2x to 1.5x, depending on the country, is more realistic.
Veserv 3y ago
I was using 10 K$ as the baseline. Junior devs make 100-200 K$/yr in salary. The fully burdened cost including overhead and benefits is usually around double that at around 200-300 K$ (higher base compensation usually results in lower proportional overhead). In the US there are ~2000 working hours a year, so that amounts to 100-150 $/hr. There are 8 hours per dev-day, so 96 dev-hours. At 100-150 $/hr that is 9600–14400 $. If you are really obstinate about 20 K$, then just double it and call it 25 junior-dev days. Whoopie, still only 10% of the yearly cost of a junior-dev. Yeah, developers are really expensive. So back to the original question, just minimally changed to account for irrelevant factors of two. Do you think having 10% more junior devs on your team is better than having better tooling for the other 90% of the team?
- rowanG077 3y ago
  Well then you are still looking at silicon valley level of salaries. The top of the top of the world. Let's take The Netherlands, where I live. A junior dev is expected to make €34,422/year. This is still a western country so let's go somewhere else. In China a junior dev makes about ¥269,904 a year, or $1.806,89. Is this tool worth 5+ man years of a junior dev? If your back of the envelope calculations only barely make sense for a tiny part of the world maybe the pricing is actually insane. edit: ¥269,904 is $37.002. Point still stands. > Do you think having 10% more junior devs on your team is better than having better tooling for the other 90% of the team? The tool would have to be pretty damn good. And also not introduce business risk or at the very least a minimal business risk.
  - OneWingedShark 3y ago
    > The tool would have to be pretty damn good. And also not introduce business risk or at the very least a minimal business risk. That is actually quite possible. Ada is in a really good place as far as that goes: imagine the cost of writing an IDE (to include compiler) for, say, Ada, PL/SQL, and VHDL -- given the common lineage, you could make a custom internal representations (IR), where each language has a 'Subtype' constraint for its particularity (e.g. `Subtype Ada_IR is General_IR with Dynamic_Predicate => Is_Common(Ada_IR) or Is_Ada(Ada_IR);`, and so on for PL/SQL and VHDL), make these IRs with SPARK proving, as you implement PL/SQL and its query-engine also implement SPARK's proof-tools and SMT-interfaces, proving it as you go, next implement and prove code-gen/HW-synth. Now, put the IDE source through the IDE, and BAM! Now you have a proved IDE+compiler for Ada, PL/SQL, and VHDL giving you a very solid platform. (Also, as you would have a DB-engine onboard, you could populate the IDE with templates and run a query like: SELECT Name, Code FROM Entities WHERE Purpose LIKE “%SCSI%”;... or SELECT Name, Purpose FROM Algorithms WHERE Purpose LIKE “%SORT%” AND Ω <= log_2;.) Also, being Ada-based, you could use Ada's Distributed Systems Annex to distribute portions of the IDE, and/or implement CI/CD as per https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/work/papers/icsm87.pdf https://users.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/work/papers/icsm87.pdf

bsder 3y ago

I no longer do proprietary licenses when my ass is on the line. With a proprietary license, you are one set of legal filings away from having the rug pulled out from under you. See: the Our Machinery fiasco. https://www.rfleury.com/p/ships-icebergs-game-engines https://www.rfleury.com/p/ships-icebergs-game-engines Or perhaps I should have linked to all the gnashing of teeth about Unity

Agingcoder 3y ago
I’m not sure about this specific contract, but historically speaking, Adacore has sold support contracts, and even if you stop paying, you’re still allowed to use the compiler versions you’ve paid for. Furthermore, since these compilers are all based on upstream, and all Adacore work eventually ends up upstream, there’s essentially no risk you’re going to be left stranded.
Xylakant 3y ago
You won’t get around fees paid in the certified compiler world. If you want someone to sign, stamp and deliver paperwork proving that a compiler upholds a standard and likely also take liability for it, you’ll need to pay. Few organizations will take on liability for free. But you can get pretty close, at least in some spaces. Self-certification is always an option. Aerospace will be harder, automotive is annoying but feasible. Ferrocene for one is entirely 100% compatible with the equivalent rust compiler, in fact it is the rust compiler built, qualify-tested, packages and delivered without any significant (1) patches. As such, it’s entirely feasible to use “I’ll just use open source rustc” as an escape hatch. Not a pretty one, self certification is quite a bit of effort, but a bounded one. There’s no magic in what we did, most of it is legwork. We even open sourced the spec that the certification is based on, so you’ll have to do less legwork than we did. This has in fact been a design goal and a requirement of our early customers. I can’t speak to Adacores plans regarding upstream compatibility, I have no insight other than their public statements and they’ve been silent on that matter. (1) a few lines, mostly target support for stuff rustc doesn’t offer in tree Disclosure: I’m one of the founders of Ferrous.