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Mycroft Holmes wrote: Don't get me started on corporate policies, I am starting a whole new set of interview questions.
Does your company have a one size (minimalist) fits all hardware policy? No. Devs get special Dev machines
What is the standard configuration of your dev machines? i7, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 500GB HDD - Either as a Desktop or Laptop
How many monitors do you allow your devs? As many as neccessary, two 23'-sized monitors at least - Or one 27' sized HD Monitor
Do your devs have local admin rights? Yes
Do you block EVERY blog/forum site on the interweb? No
Do you have an open plan (bench) style office layout? Mixed - Splitted up into small open plan areas
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You, along with Jarek can sod off, mutter mutter grumble grumble
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I've been waiting for my Windows 8 touch notebook for so long. 
Starting to think people post kid pics in their profiles because that was the last time they were cute - Jeremy.
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I completely agree there, I just finished working for one of the big 5 and they plonked me in a "hot desk" surrounded by bean counters who were on the phone constantly? I asked for somewhere quieter but was told "only partners get offices" , I said this software makes them money - fell on deaf ears - I left.
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: Does your company have a one size (minimalist) fits all hardware policy?
Not quite. Standard dev laptops are a step up the quality scale (faster CPU, more ram, discrete GPU, but still no SSD  ), the fact that we're able to get out of cycle upgrades by whining about performance/diskspace/etc is more significant. Despite a nominal 4 year upgrade cycle (and knowing some non-devs who ended up waiting longer than that) I got my 4th laptop at the 7 year point. I occasionally see people lugging around AlienWare laptops instead of the standard Latitude's (previously XPSes); but at least when I started that option was mostly limited to the poor bastards who had to run Oracle locally. Far too high a price.
Mycroft Holmes wrote: What is the standard configuration of your dev machines?
Not sure what the current spec is but my 18mo old system is i5-2520m (2.5ghz), 8GB, 160GB HDD, NVS 4200M (520M equivalent), w7-64.
Mycroft Holmes wrote: How many monitors do you allow your devs?
It took a big of finagling (and people say my beige box NT4 relic is worthless) but I've got 3.
Mycroft Holmes wrote: Do your devs have local admin rights?
yup
Mycroft Holmes wrote: Do you block EVERY blog/forum site on the interweb?
Just mainstream blog providers (eg the ones that arewere used for social networking. Worse is that if I were to waste an hour taking the social network training course they'd unblock farcebook/twitter on my system but not the blogs.  Supposedly if you email a request they'll unblock them in a day or two; I never bothered. Google cache is easier.
Mycroft Holmes wrote: Do you have an open plan (bench) style office layout?
Most labs are; but our cubes are 8x10 or 10x10 with walls at about 5'8" or 6'4".
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: Does your company have a one size (minimalist) fits all hardware policy? Yes
What is the standard configuration of your dev machines? Win XP, 2.66Ghz, 1GB ram, 100GB HD
How many monitors do you allow your devs? One, 17"
Do your devs have local admin rights? Yes
Do you block EVERY blog/forum site on the interweb? No, only some
Do you have an open plan (bench) style office layout? Yes, but jumbled
Also we develop in Visual C++ 6.00. Yes, you read that right.
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Ok so you deserve to get paid more than I do!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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It might be more complicated than that.
We cannot upgrade compilers because we still need to support old libraries and client still work on XP (it took heavy lifting to have them moved from Win2000 to Xp a couple of years ago).
I'd rather be phishing!
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At least you can try your applications on what the users out there have. I know plenty of example where "it worked on the over-boosted" dev machine, but not at the customer.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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Rage wrote: At least you can try your applications on what the users out there have. I know plenty of example where "it worked on the over-boosted" dev machine, but not at the customer.
I'd rather go for a split-up concept: Development happens on a reaqsonable dev machine (most compilers and IDEs need more power than the program developed) and testing happens on a test client which has the same power as an average client machine.
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This needn't say. And I guess most of the developers are doing it like this !
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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Rage wrote: most of the developers are doing it like this !
I doubt that, I've seen far too many crapware developed here at my company.
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Nothing - They'll get what they deserve when the quality of the product suffers as a result... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
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I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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I have Core-i7 since last 3.1 years with Win 7 64bit + Win8-64bit dual boot with 4GB Ram and works like charm
At office I have Core-i5 Win7-64bit 4GB Ram, but is Sucks big time and makes my cry!
// ♫ 99 little bugs in the code,
// 99 bugs in the code
// We fix a bug, compile it again
// 101 little bugs in the code ♫
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Tell your manager, while you code: "good, cheap or fast: pick two. "
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Keep a full record, for an entire week, of the time you spend waiting for the machine to respond/perform tasks that should take micro-seconds, and present it to your manager.
I'm sure he'll be able to do the arithmetic.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I would leave the company.
I'm a geek, so I feel valued by a company as much as my hardware is. :p
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I've spent about ten times as much of my working hours adapting to new development tools as I should have. Especially when I was employed at a large research institute: Every new project replaced half of the tools in the toolbox, and we worked slowly and inefficiently for half of the project time, because we hadn¨t learned to use the tools properly yet.
That is the major reason why I resist whenever someone suggests that we should replace this tool with that tool, this language with that language, this document format with that format,...
Obviously, the cost of change is much smaller if you just upgrade to the next version (or the next after that, or after that again), but is still is far from "free". Like, last time we upgraded our build server system to a newer version, it took two full days to migrate all the old, archived builds to the format of the new version. For that reason, we have not yet adopted the next major version, and before we adopt the recently released new version afte that, we will do a thorough cleanup in our build archives to try to reduce the offline time for the build servers to less than 24 hours.
If you have a real need for the functionality in the new version (whether hardware or software), a good boss ought to listen to you. But lots of upgrades are primarily justified by the developers feeling inferior when using old versions, not a real need.
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I just go out and buy the tools myself. Sometimes I even submit the expense and dare them to justify not reimbursing me.
After years and years of working for companies that made it seem that you needed CEO approval to buy a box of paperclips, while they gallivanted around the country on the company dime to attend one conference or another, I decided my development lifetime is too limited to submit to their whims.
Since I am willing to pay for the tools out of my own pocket without a guarantee of reimbursement, I make the point that I am not a kid in a candy store buying anything that strikes my fancy. If I am willing to risk my own money, I must feel it is necessary.
I've had to deal with bean counters who would seem to be telling me, that while that piece of software may save me weeks of development, they still see that they had to pay me for those weeks anyway and now they have to add the cost of the software to their expenses. Productivity does not seem show up on the bottom line.
Companies don't seem to be interested in saving time, but if you can save them money, they listen. Several times I've saved the company money by having the tools to get something done so they didn't have to go out and buy a solution from someone else.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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BrainiacV wrote: Since I am willing to pay for the tools out of my own pocket without a guarantee of reimbursement
That did not work for me.. I have license for those products but company doesn't want me to use them. I have it installed on my home machine for my pet projects.
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf *
Math is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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virang_21 wrote: Your company don't want to invest in new development tools ?
I don't understand the question.
I write programs intended to run on target machines. The tools that I need are dependent on those target machines.
So are you claiming that everyone in the company is running on a super computer? And that everyone has migrated to .Net 4.5 except you?
virang_21 wrote: some decent third party tools like Telerik or DevExpress but so far it goes deaf
ear.
Because these tools would be a net positive investment for the company? So in terms of initial cost, plus service support, plus licensing versus your salary and your productivity the company would save how much money in a year? In five?
virang_21 wrote: I am at the point where I feel like I need to move on to some better workplace
:sad:
Perhaps. Or perhaps seek a better perspective on what is important in terms of work versus play. As one example would you be happy with VS2012 at a company where your paycheck bounced every single time and/or you had to 'hold' on to your paycheck until the funds 'cleared' at the bank before you could deposit it?
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jschell wrote: So are you claiming that everyone in the company is running on a super computer? And that everyone has migrated to .Net 4.5 except you?
Not really... All I am saying is development machines should be better specked than normal machines just to access some web based applications to run day to day business
jschell wrote: Because these tools would be a net positive investment for the company?
It will definitely cut down some development time to deliver projects lot faster than otherwise. It will give applications a professional look and feel with more functionality. ( How easily can you do grouping and filtering on normal grid control v/s those third party tools ? .. That is just one example when you talk about value for money...IF company is making millions in profit they should make some investment in new technology...
)
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf *
Math is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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virang_21 wrote: It will definitely cut down some development time to deliver projects lot faster
than otherwise.
So prove that to management.
virang_21 wrote: It will give applications a professional look and feel with more functionality.
Presuming that is even important in terms of delivery. After all if the point of the app is for in house use it doesn't matter if it looks "professional". And depending on the product that might not matter for the customer market either. However in terms of the customer market then the simple solution is to prove to marketing and sales that it is better then they, not the developer, will be asking for it.
virang_21 wrote: That is just one example when you talk about value for money...IF company is
making millions in profit they should make some investment in new technology...
Pretty sure I already addressed that point in the previous response.
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software developers have an obligation to quit and move on. it's for the good of the industry and the "brotherhood" of software developers in general. by helping a "low baller" company stay in business like that, you are subsidizing the company at your expense and the expense of the "brotherhood". you are negatively affecting your own career by not keeping up with technology and you are helping to stagnate the economy. if the company can't afford to use reasonable and adequate technology for development - it's likely they have a bad and unsustainable business model anyway. find a better environment where you can develop your skills at a more rapid pace, and then jump ship.
David
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etkins wrote: if the company can't afford to use reasonable and adequate technology for development - it's likely they have a bad and unsustainable business model anyway
Nonsense.
All mid size and larger companies must deal with the fact that infrastructure investment must continue but that doesn't mean every single thing in the company must be upgraded every single time something new comes out. Companies that do that go out of business, and very likely fail to deliver anything as well.
And they also must deal with the fact that their business partners and customers do exactly the same thing. That is why, for example, that companies don't roll out products that support only the newest browser or OS. And why they often roll out products that support browsers\OSes that are no longer even being supported.
More over it is often the case that one might need to deal with even very old software. I know for a fact that there are places out there that still run cash register software on Windows 95 (given that I saw the start up screen on Friday night.) It would be surprised if there were not Windows 3.1 apps running out there.
Professional developers do not exist to play with toys. They do exist to help a company make money. Given that customer service is often a factor in company delivery then one might be tasked with providing support for something that is very old. And professionals must provide value to the company.
For those that think their job should be nothing but a venue for the exploration of the universe then they should stay out of the professional realm and keep puttering around at night in their parents basement.
etkins wrote: find a better environment where you can develop your skills at a more rapid pace,
Skills such as process control, project management, requirements gathering, architecture and system design perhaps.
Real skills.
Skills which have a real payback and which do not require the latest toy to be successful in.
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Those are fluffy soft skills. I am talking about more difficult technical skills.
Seemed to have struck a nerve with you. I have been doing this stuff for over 20 years and I always consider myself a student.
There's nothing wrong with using older languages like Ada, Tcl/Tk, because they are still very relevant today. But the developer should be trying to leverage these tools on more cutting edge platforms.
Get on the train before it leaves the station and leaves you behind.
Companies like IBM buy up really old tool suites and try to maintain them, and that's why they are going down the toilet like a big turd.
~d~
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