I was at a startup and Xcode compiles were getting really slow. When asked about it, it came down to the slow Swift compiler which was still early and evolving quickly but not very quick. Ended up getting a Mac Pro with I think 64 GB (which doesn't seem quite as much now with laptops having 32GB). It wasn't me using it, but I appreciated using money to solve problems.
Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
61–70 of 71 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#62>a Core i5 laptop with 16GB of ram running at 1.6GHz Not arguing that's enough, but it is probably better than the average customer laptop. So if you do get a much higher-end machine, it's worth making sure the app runs okay on something less capable than that.
You want my compile times to suffer so I experience what a normal user experiences when using my app? Doesn’t seem like the best use of the developers time.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#63Because those are crappy companies.
As I said many times over here: If you have a terrible manager/lead, if you are drowned in useless time consuming scrum rituals and can't get work done, if you are asked to work more hours you're paid for, if you're not happy with your salary or anything similar to this and you can't see this changing in the short term, just find a new job. If you already have a job as a developer it will take you almost no time to find something else.
Right, your next company might have some of these problems as well. F*ck them too and keep searching until you find something you like. There are a LOT of great companies to work for out there, but it takes time and research effort to find them.
I've left companies just after 2 months because I've given crappy laptops and forced to use tools (such as local editors as crazy as "Scite") because the CTO was a fanboi of it.
I've left companies after 2 or 3 months because they were scrumb-by-the-book extremist who didn't had a clue what they were doing but scrum was good because the book the PM read said so.
I've left companies because after 2 years was earning almost the same salary than when I joined while my market value was a lot higher (now I'm earning about 2.5X).
So are you in a crappy company? They don't want to change their bad ways? Good luck to them, I'm not working there.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#64It is the reason why I hammer on BYOD beeing supported or not during the interview. "Can I use my own machine with Linux on it, do your tools/tooling allow that use case"
There is sooooooo much work out there looking for devops people; that, for me, it's a numbers game. And for the companies; a struggle to provide such an environment.
So far so good, and I'm having a blast. It's amazing what a difference having a nice dev experience / setup can make in you day to day work.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#65>a Core i5 laptop with 16GB of ram running at 1.6GHz Not arguing that's enough, but it is probably better than the average customer laptop. So if you do get a much higher-end machine, it's worth making sure the app runs okay on something less capable than that.
I was going to write something similar. Actually, I don't care what hardware developers use to develop on, but what they use to experience the product should be at most median of user hardware, and probably lower spec than that (except if they're working on bugs or features for high end devices or specific devices). A low spec laptop (which something with 16GB isn't) and a nice remote build server is a good combinati…
You're thinking here of front-end developers. Everyone else:
Platform
Back end
Mobile
Etc
Is not targeting median consumer grade laptops
At my org the PO's had to upgrade from MacBook air to MacBook Pro in order to be able to screenshare Jira via Ms Teams with slack and outlook open
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#66Developer here,
I've got i9 2.4GHz (Turbo 5.3 GHz) with 64GB of RAM from my employer. I think it doesn't count as crappy.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#67Crappy computers or crappy anti-malware solutions? My Thinkpad T14 Gen 1 with AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U and 32GB memory is not the fastest machine but plenty fast when forced in boost mode. In Windows-to-go on an external USB3 spinning rust drive at least.
Running the corporate OS however is a whole different story:
- Symantec Endpoint Protection with SONAR enabled, scanning at every file access
- CarbonBlack Response Sensor
- Hive Streaming
- Riverbed Steelhead Mobile
- BeyondTrust Defendpoint
- Nexthink sensor that were installed because people were (are) having performance issues
- Probably other stuff I've missed
Kernel times are through the roof when I look at Task Manager.
Suffice to say, this computer is plenty fast and does its job better when booting Windows from an external harddrive than it does on its internal NVME SSD running the corporate install. Everything is faster, from running git to running builds and automated testing.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#68I once took a contract for a FAANG that had me on the shittiest piece of DELL Optiplex Dell had ever plexed. You could not have sold it for negative dollars. It took me easily 2x longer to do everything I needed to do. The contract paid out about $150,000, so the high-end graphics lappytop I needed that would have cost them $3,000 cost them $75,000 instead. This does not account for my lost sanity. Fury. Rage. Tempes…
I got a crap PC that literally exploded 2 weeks after I started working for a college in the IT dept. I just brought my old PC and joined it to the domain. No one had a problem with it for some reason. (It was the wild west out there)
Ha ha. I think you found the right forum.
Did that at MSFT once. They wouldn't buy me an Adobo Photochopz license, so I borrowed one from alt.binaries.blah.blah. My co-worker would joke blackmail me once a fortnight: If you don't bring a grande hazelnut latte with extra nutmeg from that Starbucks 'meeting' you are goin' to, ugh hmm!, I know!, imma tell x you got that pirate photochopz on your usb thingy and he gonna fire yo ass.
(There was a time when you could talk like this there, long before you had to introduce your pronouns aft your name, when the safest space was the kitchen, where you could arm yourself with 185 °F cup of Farmer Brothers coffeesupersludge.)
(We were in software license compliance, btw.)
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#69>a Core i5 laptop with 16GB of ram running at 1.6GHz Not arguing that's enough, but it is probably better than the average customer laptop. So if you do get a much higher-end machine, it's worth making sure the app runs okay on something less capable than that.
You want my compile times to suffer so I experience what a normal user experiences when using my app? Doesn’t seem like the best use of the developers time.
Maybe read my comment again. I didn't say anything like that, at all.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies issue crappy machines to developers?
#70I think many managers really don't understand the impact that computer performance has on developers. For instance, some developers have a 40 minute build process. You'd imagine that if you spent a week making that 40 minute build process a 10 minute build process you could get that time back in a few weeks. The first response you might get if you bring the issue up is that we only work on tickets that have a direct…
In real world it's usually hard to precisely quantify this improvement ahead of time and so managers might over weigh the probability that your efforts fail to materialize the win. In the end you need a manager that is comfortable enough with risks, has the same expectation of success as you, and trusts you personally. So as usual, you need a good manager.
Not as hard as you think if you try.
People often just don't think about "how long does it take to do X?"
At one startup I worked at the CEO wanted to try "hackathon" style development and have us try to knock something out in two hours.
This was a system that had a back end written in Scala and a front end using Typescript and React. I told the CEO that it took 20 minutes to go from zero to docker images ready to run (I knew because I kept notes) so at best we could do six iterations in that time. The CTO said, "No way it takes that long".
I stepped back at this point and we all agreed we'd go ahead and see what happens.
It really took 18 minutes.
Whenever I've felt pressured and "under the gun" I've taken notes about what the process is and where the time actually goes.