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Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

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Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#51

Post by 12ren »

There's an issue of need satiation. Once a need is met, further improvements can't be absorbed. Like water when you aren't thirsty, it doesn't matter.

Hardware helps performance - but this only matters when more performance is needed. For example, if features or usability are needed, extra performance doesn't help. This is obvious, but it's surprisingly easy to get caught up in improvements that are better, but that don't matter.

For productivity of programmers, faster hardware only helps when performance is a problem. The article says: If [it] makes them merely 5% more productive... - that's an "if". Will a faster PC make you more productive? These days, compilation is too quick for me to squeeze in a swordfight. For other hardware (eg large screens) there is also a limit beyond which extra real estate isn't useful (Joel on Software talked about several of his coders that don't use their second monitor). It depends on the task, of course.

Faster is always cool and impressive. But like a 300 miles per hour station wagon, will it help you?

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#52

Post by sadfsa »

gnaritas wrote: post #43
gaius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of software is written for businesses and runs either on an intranet or is available on the internet to the users of that business. That doesn't mean a thing in terms of scalability. One user can max out a fast machine with OLAP cubes or other DSS. Or any sort of simulation or modeling. Think in terms of datasets, not in terms of users (all many users are is a large dataset with a requirement for a…

If an app only has one user, it doesn't need to scale, it needs to perform. Scalability is all about users and only loosely related to performance. Datasets are irrelevant.

I don't know what dictionary you're using, but here are a few definitions from mine:

scalable - How well a hardware or software system can adapt to increased demands.

scalable - the ability of a product or network to accommodate growth

The ability to scale hardware and software to support larger or smaller volumes of data and more or less users.

the ability of a computer system to shrink or grow as requirements change

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#53

Post by gaius »

gnaritas wrote: post #43
gaius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of software is written for businesses and runs either on an intranet or is available on the internet to the users of that business. That doesn't mean a thing in terms of scalability. One user can max out a fast machine with OLAP cubes or other DSS. Or any sort of simulation or modeling. Think in terms of datasets, not in terms of users (all many users are is a large dataset with a requirement for a…

If an app only has one user, it doesn't need to scale, it needs to perform. Scalability is all about users and only loosely related to performance. Datasets are irrelevant.

That's not true. It needs to scale from 1M of data to 1G to 1T and beyond. You seem to think that scalability only refers to concurrency. It doesn't. It means that you're as close as possible to O(n) or better yet O(1) as your workload increases, whatever that workload is.

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#54

Post by gaius »

zandorg wrote: post #44

I practise the 'path' method of speed optimisation: If you can not execute a piece of heavy code every 10 in 100 runs, you save a lot, just by a simple data/value check before it. As for memory opts, pass by reference instead of value (in C++). I've sped up code by a factor of hundreds by doing some crazy stuff (without going to assembly).

Yep, memoization is often a big win, and so easy to do in Python with a decorator.

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#55

Post by stcredzero »

m0nty wrote: post #9
swilliams wrote: post #4

"Also, having programmers who believe that their employers actually give a damn about them is probably a good business strategy for companies that actually want to be around five or ten years from now." This is probably the most overlooked reason to get at least semi-good hardware. Part of the reason I quit my last job was because of management's stubborn refusal to get us tools that would make us be more productive.

I quit a job a couple of years ago where (I kid you not) I had no desk, no allocated seating, and no PC. I was expected to bring in my own laptop. Whenever there was a director's meeting, we all had to surrender our communal office and hide in the server room. Duration of job: less than six months. It would have been shorter if I'd know what assholes they were (I had some idea they might sort out the problems if I wa…

I worked for a state agency a long, long time ago. I was doing Perl-CGI web app, but I was only given a tiny table, a wooden chair, and a little teeny green-screen CRT I could use to rlogin and have shell access. This was actually a machination by the current system administrator who wanted the project to fail because we were impinging on his territory. (He wanted all of that State's Public TV related online publishing to be on an old-style text BBS he had set up.)

Well, my project was wildly successful anyways and I ended up being moved to a proper office and he ended up getting a different job.

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#57

Post by m0nty »

kragen wrote: post #39
m0nty wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit a job a couple of years ago where (I kid you not) I had no desk, no allocated seating, and no PC. I was expected to bring in my own laptop. Whenever there was a director's meeting, we all had to surrender our communal office and hide in the server room. Duration of job: less than six months. It would have been shorter if I'd know what assholes they were (I had some idea they might sort out the problems if I wa…

...and you're not bothering to tell us who it is, so someone from HN might get suckered into working for them next month.

Well, I'm guessing most of you guys are in the US anyway. But if you find yourself in the county of Somerset, UK, and get a chance at an interview with a company providing IT services to a well-known defence contractor, and they tell you it's web development, systems administration and "a bit" of support work, just ask them to define "a bit" rather more precisely.

I can't be too specific because we have some rather repressive libel laws over here.

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#58

Post by kragen »

m0nty wrote: post #57
kragen wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and you're not bothering to tell us who it is, so someone from HN might get suckered into working for them next month.

Well, I'm guessing most of you guys are in the US anyway. But if you find yourself in the county of Somerset, UK, and get a chance at an interview with a company providing IT services to a well-known defence contractor, and they tell you it's web development, systems administration and "a bit" of support work, just ask them to define "a bit" rather more precisely. I can't be too specific because we have some rather r…

Awesome :) Me, I'm in Argentina.

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#59

Post by natch »

DougBTX wrote: post #38
redrobot5050 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even then, 30-40K is weak. 40K should be your starting salary. Anything less, and you're being taken.

He said "30-40K too low", as in "30-40K lower than I would reasonably expect".

Yep, you read that correctly.

Re: Coding Horror: Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

#60

Post by brl »

bockris wrote: post #5
swilliams wrote: post #4

"Also, having programmers who believe that their employers actually give a damn about them is probably a good business strategy for companies that actually want to be around five or ten years from now." This is probably the most overlooked reason to get at least semi-good hardware. Part of the reason I quit my last job was because of management's stubborn refusal to get us tools that would make us be more productive.

I applied to a job in the spring of 2006 and when they were showing me around the development area I noticed that everyone had single smallish CRTs and what seemed like older computers. I asked about it and they told me that most people had P3-500's! Unsurprisingly their salary offer was low also and I did not take the job.

I took that job and for 5 years each day when I arrived at work I would have to go around looking for somebody that had carelessly wandered off to the bathroom and steal their chair. Eventually I just settled on one that was missing two wheels and an arm rest since it tended to not mysteriously vanish as often while I was at home sleeping or away eating lunch.
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