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The worst tool for the job

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Re: The worst tool for the job

#91

Post by eezurr »

user5994461 wrote: post #78
eezurr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Bicycles: I've ridden cheap bikes ( $ Yesterday I went to my local Trek store and rode a $2500 bike for the first time, and it was a joy to ride. I didn't know gear changes could be so accurate/seamless/instant. First time I rode with disc brakes: I feel way more in control when I need to stop at high speed. The frame fit my body perfectly. Obviously the bike will wear down like cheaper bikes, but the difference i…

A brand new bike can be as low as €100 highly dependent on current availability and discounts. Cheap bikes are €100-200, maybe up to €250 for an adult man mountain bike. I'm shocked you'd call a $750 bike "cheap" when that's undeniably high end.

https://bicyclewarehouse.com/collections/road-bikes?sort_by=...

New road bikes start around $700. Im shocked you can find new bikes for 100 euros!

Re: The worst tool for the job

#92

Post by eezurr »

dmurray wrote: post #70
eezurr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Bicycles: I've ridden cheap bikes ( $ Yesterday I went to my local Trek store and rode a $2500 bike for the first time, and it was a joy to ride. I didn't know gear changes could be so accurate/seamless/instant. First time I rode with disc brakes: I feel way more in control when I need to stop at high speed. The frame fit my body perfectly. Obviously the bike will wear down like cheaper bikes, but the difference i…

The bike will wear down more than cheaper bikes, unfortunately. Chainrings, derailleurs, cassettes on mid-range bikes are made of lighter metals and to tighter tolerances than those on cheaper bikes. You'll replace them 3x as often and pay 3x as much for the parts, so maintenance is an order of magnitude more expensive per kilometre. There are some exceptions: higher-quality bottom brackets seem to last longer, and o…

Thanks for the info! Could you give me an idea of the yearly cost to maintain a mid-range bike?

Re: The worst tool for the job

#93

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

bosie wrote: post #36
DizzyDoo wrote: post #32

Sometimes using less-than-the-best tools directly leads to better products with smoother development cycles. I'm an indie games developer and I develop on a machine that is the 'Minimum Hardware Requirements' for my games. So, if you visit the Steam page for my current game, the Minimum Requirements are just the specs of my computer, which would be considered mid-range when I built it in 2016, and now is very underpo…

Though this seems only relevant if running on lower spec hardware (mid range 2016 machines) is actually relevant to the product. If it isn't and customer would rather have better graphics at a higher cost of running it, you are developing against a metric of success which is unfortunately wrong.

Alternatively, Factorio is known for being low powered enough a toaster can run it.

Someone who can't afford a fancy computer can afford your game.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#94

Post by titanomachy »

potta_coffee wrote: post #71

Valid reasoning but I've encountered some situations where you definitely don't want the cheapest possible object when starting out. For instance, when I was learning guitar, at the time, the cheapest guitars were junk and wouldn't stay in tune and had other problems that affected one's ability to use them to practice music. A more expensive instrument is worth it because a beginner stuck with the absolutely lowest t…

Yeah, I found the same thing with bikes. I hated riding bikes until someone gave me a used but nice road bike. It was an entirely different activity than riding the cheap, heavy bike I had before.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#95

Post by paozac »

jmilloy wrote: post #84
klodolph wrote: post #4

Eh, something to be said for mid-range too. I have a 12v cordless drill. Ended up saving me tons of work over the years but by no means either the best or the worst. Musical instruments. The low-end ones tend to be true disasters. Mid-range CPUs and GPUs are wonderful. Kitchen mixers, knives, screwdrivers, soldering irons, drill presses, etc. Plenty of times the worst tool is so obviously terrible that you probably s…

I think the second-cheapest is usually the best starter product. The cheapest product requires every possible sacrifice to quality, but the second-cheapest only made the tradeoffs that make sense. You can buy the second-cheapest and still get most of the benefits mentioned in the article without having to become a mini-expert evaluating whether the cheapest option is at least safe and functional. And I think a second…

The second cheapest is often where the seller makes the most profit. There is a pricing strategy around this idea - people will rarely buy the cheapest or the most expensive item of the list. Their function is to shift up all prices and set the bar

Re: The worst tool for the job

#96

Post by nine_k »

jerf wrote: post #77
nine_k wrote: post #30

I agree that an ASCII diagram helps concentrate on the content by making the attention to the irrelevant impossible. But it's way clumsy and hard to edit when you need to change the text and move the boxes because of that, making it... not the best tool for the job. I would take Graphviz [1], or went to https://plantuml.com/ and drew a nicer diagram while using fewer characters. Also, a much more easy to edit one. So…

"But it's way clumsy and hard to edit when you need to change the text and move the boxes because of that, making it... not the best tool for the job." Original article says "I’m not doing this completely bare-knuckles. Emacs has tools like artist-mode that make it easier than manually positioning every character." See: https://youtu.be/cIuX87Xo8Fc?t=149

This is good, but again this is a solution like using a vector drawing program, only on a slightly weirder canvas. You still care about what your boxes look like, and fiddle with them.

Graphviz removes this concern. You say "I want a chart with nodes connected like so", and `dot` provides just that.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#97

Post by kemiller2002 »

klodolph wrote: post #4

Eh, something to be said for mid-range too. I have a 12v cordless drill. Ended up saving me tons of work over the years but by no means either the best or the worst. Musical instruments. The low-end ones tend to be true disasters. Mid-range CPUs and GPUs are wonderful. Kitchen mixers, knives, screwdrivers, soldering irons, drill presses, etc. Plenty of times the worst tool is so obviously terrible that you probably s…

Musical instruments. The low-end ones tend to be true disasters.

Funny story about that one. My ex-wife's family are professionals in the music industry: playing, repairing, etc. Her dad plays, repairs, and sells trumpets. A mom and her kid come into the store and he hates playing the trumpet. I mean hates it, he's not good at it, can't stand practicing and begs to just leave it broken. They come into the get a valve replaced one the kids plays, and while they are doing the paperwork and looking around her dad looks at the trumpet he needs to repair. It's horrible. I mean garbage. She bought it for him, because "she didn't know if he would like it, " and got him one from an ebay store. My ex-father in law goes over and picks up a mid-range one for students, and just says, "Try this out. See what you think." The kid plays it realizes that it's 100 times easier to make a decent sound and loves it. He hated playing because of the instrument, not because he didn't like it. My ex agreed to sell her the new trumpet on one condition, that she giver her the old one so it will never be played again.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#98

Post by branon »

itsoktocry wrote: post #37
3pt14159 wrote: post #20

I do this a different way. I think about how much I'm going to use something and try my best to over-invest in what is typically cheap and could last years and under-invest (or avoid all together) in what is expensive or could last less than a year. Pen: Very expensive. Sunglasses: Very expensive. Phone: Very expensive. Laptop: Very expensive. Shoes / most clothing: Midrange, since they don't last long, but they're n…

> Sunglasses: Very expensive. This one is confusing. Sunglasses are 90% fashion. What exactly are you getting with an expensive pair? I take the opposite route. Cheap sunglasses that I'm unconcerned about dropping, sitting on, or leaving behind.

> Cheap sunglasses

Maybe OP prefers rhinestone shades? ;)

Re: The worst tool for the job

#99

Post by commandlinefan »

When coding in Java, I usually start with a shell script that compiles the code rather than, say, a POM or a Gradle build - I don't upgrade to a dedicated build system until a) the shell script becomes more trouble than it's worth or b) I have to share with somebody else. There's something to be said for having complete control over every aspect of the build.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#100

Post by user5994461 »

eezurr wrote: post #91
user5994461 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A brand new bike can be as low as €100 highly dependent on current availability and discounts. Cheap bikes are €100-200, maybe up to €250 for an adult man mountain bike. I'm shocked you'd call a $750 bike "cheap" when that's undeniably high end.

https://bicyclewarehouse.com/collections/road-bikes?sort_by=... New road bikes start around $700. Im shocked you can find new bikes for 100 euros!

See here, the first adult road bike is at €260.

https://www.decathlon.fr/p/velo-de-route-triban-rc100-gris/_...

They must have skimped on everything else to get a 100% aluminum road bike so you're probably better off buying any other type of bike in this price range.

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