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Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

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Re: Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

#21

Post by Spooky23 »

We deploy 2 cpu and 4 GB for office 2016 VDI users. That's tight for a developer.

Unless you're offshore and your wasted time is not as valuable, that's a poor VDI use case that doesn't make sense

Fight it with vendor recommendations.

http://blogs.vmware.com/consulting/tag/vmware-view-storage

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/view/Server-Storage-Sizing-G...

Re: Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

#24

Post by insamniac »

davelnewton wrote: post #11

Put your own RAM in. I used to have to upgrade my own machines. For years. Monitors and RAM. I haven't had a place that gave me anything less than 16G for years now, though.

Oh how I wish. I would build and donate a machine if it were that easy. It makes it so much worse that I have 96GB of RAM here at home and remote in to 4GB that are probably overprovisioned too.

Re: Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

#25

Post by insamniac »

nness wrote: post #6

So, hardware purchases for large organisations (and what I assume might be a government agency or government vendor) seems to be driven more from strategic sourcing relationships and cost as a priority, and actual technical requirements second. Seldom do people go "here's what we need, lets cost it!" More likely its a compromise between cost and service. That being said, 4GB is stupidly low for a development machine…

Yeah it's not a single company making the hardware decisions. Like most government contract situations it's more akin to a 20 company gang bang at a public facility using shared work space and hardware.

I don't even know where I'd begin to petition for a change. This was mostly just my way of ranting somewhere I'd get support, since no one made a peep on the internal comment I posted. I don't think most developers are fine with the 4GB situation. Those that are don't matter, and the others have likely just been beaten into submission or don't want to be seen as fussy.

Re: Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

#28

Post by throweway »

detaro wrote: post #5

Well, if it really is a VDI client and not used for more then the specs would be fine, not much happening locally that would need more. But then you wouldn't be running Eclipse, Chrome and WebLogic locally on them, so that's probably not the case? And even Chrome alone can easily eat more than 4 GB, so that's kinda laughable for any kind of dev work.

Point?

Re: Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

#29

Post by detaro »

throweway wrote: post #28
detaro wrote: post #5

Well, if it really is a VDI client and not used for more then the specs would be fine, not much happening locally that would need more. But then you wouldn't be running Eclipse, Chrome and WebLogic locally on them, so that's probably not the case? And even Chrome alone can easily eat more than 4 GB, so that's kinda laughable for any kind of dev work.

Point?

Trying to understand why OP talks about VDI clients (basically dumb terminals), but then complains that they don't have enough RAM to run apps locally.

Re: Ask HN: Our lead architect says 4GB is enough for a developer machine

#30

Post by cdvonstinkpot »

I second what MalcomDiggs has said, but run some benchmarks on your home box with all the memory. Find an amount at which performance increases level off, & request a just amount based on hard data. If they don't respond after making it perfectly clear as to what you need to do your job properly, then leave. (Assuming you can easily get work elsewhere)

Maybe link this comments thread in your intranet post, a community like HN expressing sane norms might help your case.

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