7 ms·

Around $4100! https://www.amronintl.com/stanley-cs113no-hydraulic-underwater-chainshaw-cs11.html https://www.amronintl.com/stanley-cs113no-hydraulic-underwat..

by chubs 3y ago

Around $4100! https://www.amronintl.com/stanley-cs113no-hydraulic-underwater-chainshaw-cs11.html https://www.amronintl.com/stanley-cs113no-hydraulic-underwat... Amazing how capable tools can be, in industries that simply cannot get their work done without them and are willing to pay a healthy amount. Sometimes I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year, as opposed to the time-wasting bug-fest that is Xcode. Not singling out Apple, I’m sure all are comparably bad, it’s just what I happen to use :)

thrillgore 3y ago
You think Apple is expensive? Licenses for Dassault Catia start at $12,000.
- civilitty 3y ago
  Mentor Graphics silicon design stuff started at $50,000 last I checked. Easily 100-150k per seat for mixed signal chip design. Cost as much or more than the salary of the person using it.
- sverhagen 3y ago
  Think they were making the opposite claim, but then that the quality was low too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
KennyBlanken 3y ago
This is the most strained connection employed to engage in Apple-bashing that I've seen in quite some time. I feel like we need an Apple-themed Godwin's Law - namely that no HN thread is complete without someone somehow managing to bring up Apple and how evil and undervalued they are. The irony is that high-end Macs have been widely laughed at by people who don't have a use for them...while various creative and scientific sectors gladly pay that expense because unlike the commenters they're actually using them to make money; for example, the G5 and first-gen Mac Pro had enormous memory bandwidth that made them ideal for a lot of scientific data processing, medical imagery, running instruments, etc.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  I've been here 13 years and am not aware of this pattern. Also, gently, note: > Not singling out Apple, I’m sure all are comparably bad, it’s just what I happen to use :) The Xcode thing is often an in-joke with iOS developers.
  - sverhagen 3y ago
    Yeah, feels like in a different era this criticism would've been levied against Microsoft/MSDN.
    - kosolam 3y ago
      Allow me to wake you up: Apple is a marketing company that doesn’t develop anything, rather just buying IP. Their products are buggy and awful. Including and especially iphones and ios. Everything else is marketing.
  - misnome 3y ago
    > I've been here 13 years and am not aware of this pattern. I’ve been here 11 years and see this all the time. This, however, is not an instance of it.
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      I'm only aware of the opposite pattern
      - sbuk 3y ago
        Confirmation bias? Yet here we are on a thread linking to a site showing an industrial underwater chainsaw, and someone has managed to connect it to tech (possibly, and normally hinting at the importance of FOSS) and managed to have a dig at Apple, Microsoft or Google.
        refulgentis 3y ago
gopiandcode 3y ago
Please also consider how much less inclusive and accessible computing would be if access to development tooling was placed behind such exorbitantly priced paywalls... The things we have at the moment aren't perfect, but I feel like the fact that the barrier of entry to programming is so low is an overwhelming positive that I couldn't see any level of bells and whistles justifying taking it away.
- tempodox 3y ago
  You're assuming it would have to be either/or, but it doesn't.
trissylegs 3y ago
Visual Studio does cost thousands for some versions. And yeah. It certainly is a better tool than Xcode.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  Enterprise is $6000 for the first year, then $2000/yr, but the main thing is it’s a perpetual license and includes (also perpetual) licenses for all MSDN downloads going right back to Windows 3.11 and QBASIC for DOS. Apple don’t even let you downgrade iOS on your own devices. Compare and contrast.
theamk 3y ago
I worked at the company which used a proprietary compiler, IDE including debugger.. It was few thousands $ I believe. plus about the same amount for their proprietary JTAG adapter. Worst software I ever used. Crashy, slow, critical features missing (example: debugger can show thread list... but not the stacks of other threads). So no, I would not expect expensive commercial software to be better. It might generate 2% faster code or be certified, but the day to day experience would be terrible.
- jeffrallen 3y ago
  Leonard's Law: Software will be as bad as it's users can tolerate, and no worse. VHDL compilers are catastrophically bad, because electrical engineers have to tolerate them and make tape-out. FADECs don't normally crash airplanes because pilots don't like when that happens.
  - qchris 3y ago
    Is there an article/primary source on this that you can point up? I spent a few minutes searching but couldn't seem to find anything.
    - jeffrallen 3y ago
      It's next to Neves' Law ("The harder a bug is to find, the smaller the diff to fix it will be.") in the deleted list in Wikipedia. They both were discovered by former colleagues of mine. And named by me.
      - qchris 3y ago
        Thank you!
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  But at least the vendor would guarantee, in writing, some minimum baseline of performance?
jfim 3y ago
> Sometimes I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year, as opposed to the time-wasting bug-fest that is Xcode. Jetbrains used to make an IDE for Objective C and Swift, but they sunset it last year due to weak sales. They still make fantastic tools for other programming languages though.
dig1 3y ago
I can imagine why these things are expensive, as someone who occasionally cleans the local Olympic pool using an underwater vacuum cleaner (just a side gig to get free diving time). Salty or chlorinated water (and public pools usually use heavily chlorinated water) will dissolve almost anything over time - I've seen chlorinated water eat through plastic or neoprene in 2-3 years of use. Account to that mentioned vacuum cleaner is used practically every day, through the whole year, now you have to imagine that these things must be designed for heavy-duty things. $4100 is peanuts compared to how expensive are (professional) underwater jobs.
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > Salty or chlorinated water (and public pools usually use heavily chlorinated water) will dissolve almost anything over time Metals, in particular. This is why in marine environments, special grades of stainless are used. Most commonly SAE 316 alloy (often marked with "A4", vs "A2" for regular stainless). Another approach is the use of sacrificial anodes. Where practical, it helps to rinse equipment with fresh water after use.
- amelius 3y ago
  Yes, and it's not just the chlorinated water, but also the atmosphere in a swimming pool that causes problems. https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/sims/cactus/5_02_18.htm https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/sims/cactus/5_02_18.h...
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Ductwork collapse in Colorado earlier this year https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/what-happened-gaylord-rockies-resort-pool-collapse-incident-explained https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/what-happened-gaylor...
Zanfa 3y ago
> Sometimes I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year, as opposed to the time-wasting bug-fest that is Xcode. Look no further than embedded development. Everything costs a fortune, but makes Xcode look polished and a pleasure to use. And I really hate Xcode.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
That's the weird thing about software development, it can be done on a small budget. But large companies will find ways to spend money, i.e. by using loads of CI servers on AWS.
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  Infinite scalable CI servers are great for developer productivity - as long as they are easy to use
dessimus 3y ago
>Amazing how capable tools can be, in industries that simply cannot get their work done without them and are willing to pay a healthy amount. The cost has to be that high, considering the annual market for hydraulic underwater chainsaws can not be more than a few hundred at best. Considering the environment these are expected to work in means the R&D costs are considerably higher than your bog standard chainsaw, with much few units to spread that cost over.
georgyo 3y ago
Apple has the biggest cash reserve of any company in the world. Xcode is most certainly not free, at the minimum you need an apple computer. So you must pay apple to use it. If it sucks, it's not because a lack of money, it's because Apple doesn't care.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
> willing to pay thousands a year That chainsaw is a yearly subscription? I'd rather pay once for a chainsaw.
swader999 3y ago
Just imagine what a chainsaw for Mars will cost.
BeFlatXIII 3y ago
> I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year Would we pay that directly or our employers? Also, how many would pay if the benefits are greater productivity for their employer instead of greater income from increased velocity?

by chubs 3y ago

thrillgore 3y ago

You think Apple is expensive? Licenses for Dassault Catia start at $12,000.

civilitty 3y ago
Mentor Graphics silicon design stuff started at $50,000 last I checked. Easily 100-150k per seat for mixed signal chip design. Cost as much or more than the salary of the person using it.
sverhagen 3y ago
Think they were making the opposite claim, but then that the quality was low too.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

KennyBlanken 3y ago

This is the most strained connection employed to engage in Apple-bashing that I've seen in quite some time. I feel like we need an Apple-themed Godwin's Law - namely that no HN thread is complete without someone somehow managing to bring up Apple and how evil and undervalued they are. The irony is that high-end Macs have been widely laughed at by people who don't have a use for them...while various creative and scientific sectors gladly pay that expense because unlike the commenters they're actually using them to make money; for example, the G5 and first-gen Mac Pro had enormous memory bandwidth that made them ideal for a lot of scientific data processing, medical imagery, running instruments, etc.

refulgentis 3y ago
I've been here 13 years and am not aware of this pattern. Also, gently, note: > Not singling out Apple, I’m sure all are comparably bad, it’s just what I happen to use :) The Xcode thing is often an in-joke with iOS developers.
- sverhagen 3y ago
  Yeah, feels like in a different era this criticism would've been levied against Microsoft/MSDN.
  - kosolam 3y ago
    Allow me to wake you up: Apple is a marketing company that doesn’t develop anything, rather just buying IP. Their products are buggy and awful. Including and especially iphones and ios. Everything else is marketing.
- misnome 3y ago
  > I've been here 13 years and am not aware of this pattern. I’ve been here 11 years and see this all the time. This, however, is not an instance of it.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    I'm only aware of the opposite pattern
    - sbuk 3y ago
      Confirmation bias? Yet here we are on a thread linking to a site showing an industrial underwater chainsaw, and someone has managed to connect it to tech (possibly, and normally hinting at the importance of FOSS) and managed to have a dig at Apple, Microsoft or Google.
      - refulgentis 3y ago

gopiandcode 3y ago

Please also consider how much less inclusive and accessible computing would be if access to development tooling was placed behind such exorbitantly priced paywalls... The things we have at the moment aren't perfect, but I feel like the fact that the barrier of entry to programming is so low is an overwhelming positive that I couldn't see any level of bells and whistles justifying taking it away.

tempodox 3y ago
You're assuming it would have to be either/or, but it doesn't.

trissylegs 3y ago

Visual Studio does cost thousands for some versions. And yeah. It certainly is a better tool than Xcode.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
Enterprise is $6000 for the first year, then $2000/yr, but the main thing is it’s a perpetual license and includes (also perpetual) licenses for all MSDN downloads going right back to Windows 3.11 and QBASIC for DOS. Apple don’t even let you downgrade iOS on your own devices. Compare and contrast.

theamk 3y ago

I worked at the company which used a proprietary compiler, IDE including debugger.. It was few thousands $ I believe. plus about the same amount for their proprietary JTAG adapter. Worst software I ever used. Crashy, slow, critical features missing (example: debugger can show thread list... but not the stacks of other threads). So no, I would not expect expensive commercial software to be better. It might generate 2% faster code or be certified, but the day to day experience would be terrible.

jeffrallen 3y ago
Leonard's Law: Software will be as bad as it's users can tolerate, and no worse. VHDL compilers are catastrophically bad, because electrical engineers have to tolerate them and make tape-out. FADECs don't normally crash airplanes because pilots don't like when that happens.
- qchris 3y ago
  Is there an article/primary source on this that you can point up? I spent a few minutes searching but couldn't seem to find anything.
  - jeffrallen 3y ago
    It's next to Neves' Law ("The harder a bug is to find, the smaller the diff to fix it will be.") in the deleted list in Wikipedia. They both were discovered by former colleagues of mine. And named by me.
    - qchris 3y ago
      Thank you!
MichaelZuo 3y ago
But at least the vendor would guarantee, in writing, some minimum baseline of performance?

jfim 3y ago

> Sometimes I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year, as opposed to the time-wasting bug-fest that is Xcode. Jetbrains used to make an IDE for Objective C and Swift, but they sunset it last year due to weak sales. They still make fantastic tools for other programming languages though.

dig1 3y ago

I can imagine why these things are expensive, as someone who occasionally cleans the local Olympic pool using an underwater vacuum cleaner (just a side gig to get free diving time). Salty or chlorinated water (and public pools usually use heavily chlorinated water) will dissolve almost anything over time - I've seen chlorinated water eat through plastic or neoprene in 2-3 years of use. Account to that mentioned vacuum cleaner is used practically every day, through the whole year, now you have to imagine that these things must be designed for heavy-duty things. $4100 is peanuts compared to how expensive are (professional) underwater jobs.

RetroTechie 3y ago
> Salty or chlorinated water (and public pools usually use heavily chlorinated water) will dissolve almost anything over time Metals, in particular. This is why in marine environments, special grades of stainless are used. Most commonly SAE 316 alloy (often marked with "A4", vs "A2" for regular stainless). Another approach is the use of sacrificial anodes. Where practical, it helps to rinse equipment with fresh water after use.
amelius 3y ago
Yes, and it's not just the chlorinated water, but also the atmosphere in a swimming pool that causes problems. https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/sims/cactus/5_02_18.htm https://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/sims/cactus/5_02_18.h...
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Ductwork collapse in Colorado earlier this year https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/what-happened-gaylord-rockies-resort-pool-collapse-incident-explained https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/what-happened-gaylor...

Zanfa 3y ago

> Sometimes I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year, as opposed to the time-wasting bug-fest that is Xcode. Look no further than embedded development. Everything costs a fortune, but makes Xcode look polished and a pleasure to use. And I really hate Xcode.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

That's the weird thing about software development, it can be done on a small budget. But large companies will find ways to spend money, i.e. by using loads of CI servers on AWS.

j16sdiz 3y ago
Infinite scalable CI servers are great for developer productivity - as long as they are easy to use

dessimus 3y ago

>Amazing how capable tools can be, in industries that simply cannot get their work done without them and are willing to pay a healthy amount. The cost has to be that high, considering the annual market for hydraulic underwater chainsaws can not be more than a few hundred at best. Considering the environment these are expected to work in means the R&D costs are considerably higher than your bog standard chainsaw, with much few units to spread that cost over.

georgyo 3y ago

Apple has the biggest cash reserve of any company in the world. Xcode is most certainly not free, at the minimum you need an apple computer. So you must pay apple to use it. If it sucks, it's not because a lack of money, it's because Apple doesn't care.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

> willing to pay thousands a year That chainsaw is a yearly subscription? I'd rather pay once for a chainsaw.

swader999 3y ago

Just imagine what a chainsaw for Mars will cost.

BeFlatXIII 3y ago

> I wonder how good our dev tooling would be if we were willing to pay thousands a year Would we pay that directly or our employers? Also, how many would pay if the benefits are greater productivity for their employer instead of greater income from increased velocity?