8 ms·

I don't know if it's anyone else's motivation, but developers should have machines that approximate the machine of their software's customer base. Otherwise wha

I don't know if it's anyone else's motivation, but developers should have machines that approximate the machine of their software's customer base. Otherwise what runs OK on a developer machine can be painful to use out in the field.

Game_Ender 15y ago
Depends on what you are developing. If your tests and compile times take 5 or 10 minutes, you are losing tons of productivity.
tomjen3 15y ago
Only if you write plugins for the same IDE you use to develop in. If you write Java code, you need 2GB for the IDE on a large project. But then, many people don't write software to run on customers machines.
to3m 15y ago
Remote debugging works pretty well on Windows, and I imagine it's the same story on anything Unix-like. You can work on your decent PC, debugging your program as it runs on some rubbish old castoff PC that was destined for landfill. If the budget isn't even enough for the necessary peripherals, you can get away with just a kettle lead and a network cable and then use Remote Desktop to interact with it. The remote debugging setup process isn't very slick, but it doesn't take long to figure out, and with a bit of folder-sharing you can keep all the files on your work PC so that it's all nice and convenient. I did this for quite a while, working on Windows, and it worked well. I don't recall any significant problems with it. If cost is what's preventing you getting a nice PC, then that's one thing, but the issue is just ensuring that slow code doesn't go unnoticed, this approach will probably keep you/your programmers happier...
miahi 15y ago
That's the reason we have test VMs, to approximate the customer's environment. Sometimes I just get a VM clone of the production machine with everything set up. Right now I write code for a 32-CPU 64GB RAM 300MB/s machine, should I request one exactly like it for myself? And it's not even a hardware issue - the OS, DB and middleware licenses to use on that HW cost >$1M.

Game_Ender 15y ago

Depends on what you are developing. If your tests and compile times take 5 or 10 minutes, you are losing tons of productivity.

tomjen3 15y ago

Only if you write plugins for the same IDE you use to develop in. If you write Java code, you need 2GB for the IDE on a large project. But then, many people don't write software to run on customers machines.

to3m 15y ago

Remote debugging works pretty well on Windows, and I imagine it's the same story on anything Unix-like. You can work on your decent PC, debugging your program as it runs on some rubbish old castoff PC that was destined for landfill. If the budget isn't even enough for the necessary peripherals, you can get away with just a kettle lead and a network cable and then use Remote Desktop to interact with it. The remote debugging setup process isn't very slick, but it doesn't take long to figure out, and with a bit of folder-sharing you can keep all the files on your work PC so that it's all nice and convenient. I did this for quite a while, working on Windows, and it worked well. I don't recall any significant problems with it. If cost is what's preventing you getting a nice PC, then that's one thing, but the issue is just ensuring that slow code doesn't go unnoticed, this approach will probably keep you/your programmers happier...

miahi 15y ago

That's the reason we have test VMs, to approximate the customer's environment. Sometimes I just get a VM clone of the production machine with everything set up. Right now I write code for a 32-CPU 64GB RAM 300MB/s machine, should I request one exactly like it for myself? And it's not even a hardware issue - the OS, DB and middleware licenses to use on that HW cost >$1M.