[Python-Dev] On the dangers of giving developers the best resources

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Oct 8 22:38:54 CEST 2013


Let's agree to disagree then. I see your methodology used all around me
with often problematic results. Maybe devs should have two machines -- one
monster that is *only* usable to develop fast, one small that where they
run their own apps (email, web browser etc.).


On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Tim Delaney <timothy.c.delaney at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 9 October 2013 03:35, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 8:33 AM, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com>wrote:
>>
>>> PS: I have always thought it sad that the ready availability of memory,
>>> CPU speed, and disk space tends to result in lazy programs.  I understand
>>> there is an effort/value tradeoff, and I make those tradeoffs myself
>>> all the time...but it still makes me sad.  Then, again, in my early
>>> programming days I spent a fair amount of time writing and using Forth,
>>> and that probably colors my worldview. :)
>>>
>>
>> I never used or cared for Forth, but I have the same worldview. I
>> remember getting it from David Rosenthal, an early Sun reviewer. He stated
>> that engineers should be given the smallest desktop computer available, not
>> the largest, so they would feel their users' pain and optimize
>> appropriately. Sadly software vendors who are also hardware vendors have
>> incentives going in the opposite direction -- they want users to feel the
>> pain so they'll buy a new device.
>>
>
> I look at it a different way. Developers should be given powerful machines
> to speed up the development cycle (especially important when prototyping
> and in the code/run unit test cycle), but everything should be tested on
> the smallest machine available.
>
> It's also a good idea for each developer to have a resource-constrained
> machine for developer testing/profiling/etc. Virtual machines work quite
> well for this - you can modify the resource constraints (CPU, memory, etc)
> to simulate different scenarios.
>
> I find that this tends to better promote the methodology of "make it
> right, then make it fast (small, etc)", which I subscribe to. Optimising
> too early leads to all your code being complicated, rather than just the
> bits that need it.
>
> Tim Delaney
>



-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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