Does your employer cheap out on your development box?

eyetrip · 19 Sep 2017 at 12:13

Just started new job couple weeks ago.

As standard they do development work inside vm running on a box.

Since starting have been stuck on 8gb - they are going to get it to 16gb, but I can only question the logic of whomever ordered this new box.

Also, a lot of people don't seem to grasp the concept of dual/quad channel ram. 'one stick fine'.

Maybe, but you lose out a fair chunk bandwidth.

Then I discovered yesterday that they only have standard hard drives in these machines... Again, I can only question logic.

But the more I talk to devs here, the more I get the impression devs seem to know very little about hardware.

When they chuck more ram in today, it's a completely different dimm, so God knows how well that will go.

Is it standard for companies to just go for bare minimum? Or is it just down to a bit of ignorance?

d_brennen · 19 Sep 2017 at 12:15

Yep. Where I work there is money for all kinds of nonsense but kit that will make everyone's job easier/more productive, forget about it

spoffle · 19 Sep 2017 at 12:23

I've got a friend who's a developer. He's similar. He knows the basics and knows what hardware is "good" (he uses the price as an indication of whether something is "good" or not).

However, when even just nudged, it becomes obvious that he actually isn't particularly knowledgeable. Memory bandwidth and memory channels would stump him on their direct relationship to performance. He actually thinks he knows a lot about hardware though.

D.P. · 19 Sep 2017 at 22:13

Get 2-3 getto spend on hardware every year, but haven't spent a dime since I got this iMac over 5 years ago, still serves its purpose

spoffle · 19 Sep 2017 at 22:15

D.P. said:
Get 2-3 getto spend on hardware every year, but haven't spent a dime since I got this iMac over 5 years ago, still serves its purpose

You really should start proof reading your posts.

D.P. · 19 Sep 2017 at 22:16

eyetrip · 20 Sep 2017 at 18:00

I think my 2013 13 inch macbook pro does a better job than my current work desktop PC

Still not on 16gb.

Just want to scream at them to just order two matching bloody dimms.

Seriously, probably lost more money in man hours than the cost of just getting working ram.

john_s · 20 Sep 2017 at 21:05

Last employer totally skipped out on dev machines. Real low end machines. It was a major battle to get the RAM doubled to 8GB and a SSD boot drive. It improved compile times, but nothing like it should have been..

kola · 20 Sep 2017 at 22:46

they expect me to do front-end web development on a 20" monitor.

davetherave2 · 21 Sep 2017 at 20:02

from my perspective depending on the type of company you work for it goes one of three ways:

1) You are told you have to go with this OEM because it is the standard for the rest of the company and these are your 2 choices (usually it's rare to get two) so pick one
2) You spec a machine which will last a typical 3 year pc upgrade cycle and told "nope too expensive" or "do you really need all that hardware" so have to compromise to get a machine close to your ideal which ultimately means you are buying parts mid cycle to keep the thing going before you go through the process all over again.
3) Option 2 but you are told go for it but have you considered this as an alternative to xy and z which may bump up the price but will last longer. (the rare unicorn)

I'm currently in camp 1 at the moment with my current dev machine due for replacement to go into "company standard mode" (which is still fairly decent it just needs more storage and a bit more ram and I could happily go with it for another couple of years)

Now I am told you can have this machine which is used by the other developers across the organization (which do a completely different job to me and my team) which is more gfx focused and even then the horse power isn't great for the price, or you can have this more expensive laptop with better hardware (which still isn't right for the job but I will take it anyway) no if buts or buttercups on saying can we have more ram or change the gfx card to support 3 or more monitors. Nope you are told these are the two builds choose one.

I came up with a decent build for just over a 1.2K per machine including 3 22"/24" screens (not the greatest screens but fine for what we do) and was shot down even though it would have been better compared to a typical OEM build at a similar price point as we have all the windows licenses etc. covered.

It can be frustrating on occasions but looking at it from the other side I see why decisions are made it usually comes down to the bottom price of kit. I think unless you work in the industry and have a vague idea of what hardware is and does then trying to explain that to the person with the purse strings can be difficult as they just see it as a beige box that is typically an expensive outlay.

I suspect a lot of developers are just that developers they have no interest in the hardware aspect of things and so rely on the support teams to sort out a machine for them and a lot of the time it isn't right.

Having worked both sides of the coin Support to Development I like to think I have a decent understanding of the hardware which best suits our purpose and not play the "if money is no object game" as that always ends up in bitter disappointment.

Biz.Kid09 · 21 Sep 2017 at 21:05

I am not a dev but I can tell you what our dev's have.
2 x Dell 22" 1 x Dell 30"
a zero client, 4 core, 16gb ram which is usually plenty for anyone as all the heavy lifting is done server side.
dev box, 6 core xeon, 64gb ram

Over 50 devs I believe in total.

We then have dev servers which are dual xeon and usually 192gb ram so all in all pretty beastly!

K1LaW8tt5 · 21 Sep 2017 at 23:22

davetherave2 said:
.............
I came up with a decent build for just over a 1.2K per machine including 3 22"/24" screens (not the greatest screens but fine for what we do) and was shot down even though it would have been better compared to a typical OEM build at a similar price point as we have all the windows licenses etc. covered.
..............

I think it comes down to service and warranty too though from the company's perspective when you are told to choose OEM.
A more expensive black box bought from dell/hp etc can be replaced/repaired fairly quickly under warranty, where as a custom type machine will require a lot more attention from IT if something breaks, all warranties are separate for each piece of hardware.

Which means if the mobo is fried you are sitting twiddling your thumbs until its sent back and replaced.

Rroff · 21 Sep 2017 at 23:28

eyetrip said:
Also, a lot of people don't seem to grasp the concept of dual/quad channel ram. 'one stick fine'.

I'm quite "OCD" about properly populating quad and dual channel it just doesn't feel right otherwise LOL - problem is the performance isn't terribly impacted most of the time but specific things can slow down significantly and I tend to notice those things compared to how they should be :s

I was going to say this kind of thing is why I've usually got something like my GPD Pocket with me but that is "only" 8GB of RAM heh. I've traditionally carried around my own laptop (hence 16GB one in sig) or tablet, etc. due to the dire systems I'd otherwise have to work with.

FloatingPoint · 25 Sep 2017 at 18:57

Depends what kind of software development you are doing surely? Web stuff, mostly any old standard office PC lying around will suffice. Anything computationally intensive where you’re waiting on CPU/GPU cycles to do work then it’s cost/benefit on how much time will be saved.

planty · 25 Sep 2017 at 19:53

FloatingPoint said:
Depends what kind of software development you are doing surely? Web stuff, mostly any old standard office PC lying around will suffice. Anything computationally intensive where you’re waiting on CPU/GPU cycles to do work then it’s cost/benefit on how much time will be saved.

Not necessarily true. The faster the pc, the less time you're sitting around waiting for things to compile, tests to run, etc. This is equally true for conventional desktop applications/services and any modern web environment.

I certainly wouldn't want to be doing my job on any old standard office PC.

Energize · 26 Sep 2017 at 11:18

weldon855 said:
I think it comes down to service and warranty too though from the company's perspective when you are told to choose OEM.
A more expensive black box bought from dell/hp etc can be replaced/repaired fairly quickly under warranty, where as a custom type machine will require a lot more attention from IT if something breaks, all warranties are separate for each piece of hardware.

Which means if the mobo is fried you are sitting twiddling your thumbs until its sent back and replaced.

You always have spare computers unless you are crazy.

K1LaW8tt5 · 26 Sep 2017 at 17:25

Energize said:
You always have spare computers unless you are crazy.

It was an over exaggeration to make the point.....

Adam_101 · 4 Oct 2017 at 08:59

d_brennen said:
Yep. Where I work there is money for all kinds of nonsense but kit that will make everyone's job easier/more productive, forget about it

Same with my company lol.

chroniclard · 4 Oct 2017 at 09:15

Not too bad here, we all have 16gb ram, dual screens, I7's, SSD's.

JonJ678 · 5 Oct 2017 at 20:01

I don't get this. A computer is so cheap relative to a developer - why waste loads of their time to save a few thousand on hardware?