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If you are employed as a programmer in a company, how much money relative to your salary is justified for work equipment such as computers?
Licenses for tools excluded, as a programmer you simply depend on certain tools.
From my point of view, I would expect at least 1% of my salary for my computer. Am I exaggerating?
Thank you in advance.
modified 4hrs 5mins ago.
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I don't think of it that way. But I will say that both "too little" and "too much" are to be avoided.
One of my past employers -- to some extent -- spent "too much". In one case declaring that all ETL developers (such as I) were to use a particular tool -- the most expensive one available -- even though SSIS was paid for (included with SQL Server) and did everything we needed it to. They also bought each developer an MSDN subscription, which we didn't need.
Knowing that an employer is willing to pay for what a developer asks for is good, but buying what the developer didn't request is a waste of money.
Also the general observation that many things which are "free" are often not worth the price.
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Ok, but let us assume we need to pay the employee let's say fictional $100K per year...
... after five year the developer needs a new PC (company guidelines, W10, W11, Wxyz!)...
... In my opinion, it is reasonable that the PC can costs $5K. Or is this completely absurd?
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What PC are you looking at that costs $5K in 2024?
$2K will get you a killer PC that should still perform very well in 5 years from now.
Maybe if you're throwing in a couple of large monitors, spare disks, etc but those all outlive the typical PC.
[Edit]
All of that said, I wholeheartedly agree that a developer's time costs more - a lot more - than PCs, so a PC that's so slow a dev has to constantly wait for things to happen is costing a company a lot more than the price of a new computer every couple of years.
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No sorry, but for $2K you get only something simple from my point of view.
I like to have 64GB memory for Windows and VS. I like also to have another 64GB of memory for let's say 8 VMs.
And of course 1TB SSD 
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Are you considering only list prices?
For about $2K USD, the laptop which I just bought is a Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 3, which has 32GB and a 1TB drive. Intel Core Ultra 7. Windows 11 Pro. Unsure if I could have increased the RAM, but I doubt I'll need more unless I begin doing some video editing -- which I might.
As I mentioned in another post, I nominally got about 50% off through my employer -- the list price on the Lenovo site was greater than $4K USD at the time of purchase earlier this month.
So far, I've installed SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition (free) and Visual Studio 2022 Pro -- there was a post about a deal on that a few months back.
It does what I need so far -- e.g. some light SQL and C#
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I bought a pair of Beelink[*] SER5 Mini PCs with a Ryzen 5 (6 cores/12 logical processors) and 8GB RAM/500GB NVMe back in May; both have had a 64GB RAM upgrade and are now hosting VMs 24/7. I paid CAD$430 for both computers, and CAD$200 for each 64GB RAM upgrade kits.
I already had a pair of 2TB SSDs (coming out of another VM host that I've since retired) to host my VMs. More than enough space - one's using 800GB and the other 1.4TB. As I'm writing this, one's running 7 lives VMs, the other 6; both are currently using 40-something GB out of their respective 64. In other words, they still have quite a bit of resources still available, and I don't exactly go out of my way to shut down VMs even if I'm not gonna be using them for a few days.
It's "simple" enough in terms of system setup, but it's working out extremely well and the load on each is less than it was on the retired system they're now replacing. Sure, the CPUs aren't exactly latest-gen, but I don't feel like they're performing in a way that wastes my time.
Windows and VS licenses are provided by my employer through the MS Partner program. (Oh, and the systems both came fully licensed with Windows 11 anyway)
[*] If I ever spend money again on a full-tower system, 1000W power supply and stupidly power-hungry video card, it'll be my gaming rig.
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$5k would be 5% of your $100k salary, not 1%. Just sayin'.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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Sorry, forgot to mention a five year intrevall...
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I've never given much thought to it.
I do know that larger enterprises pay less per unit than small businesses. They also (tend to) pay higher wages.
So, a mom-and-pop may pay 5K for a laptop for an employee they pay 75K -- and buy only the one.
While a large enterprise may pay 2.5K for the same laptop for an employee they pay 100K for the same work -- and replace it every couple of years whether it's necessary or not. (Boss: "You need to have your laptop replaced." Me: "But it's still working just fine.")
If you want an employer to increase their percentage -- would you rather they pay more for the same item, or pay you less?
Obviously, comparing percentage spent is not really important.
As an aside, I just bought a laptop -- my first. I got a "discount" through my employer -- about 50% off list price ("does anyone ever actually pay list price?", my wife asked, rhetorically). So that factors in as well, if you consider the "savings" to be sort of a "bonus" from my employer. I've gone this long without a laptop, I didn't really need one.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: I don't think of it that way.
Totally tangential side note, but the wealthy think in percentages. It's the poor/middle class that refuse to. It's actually very smart to think in percents as that changes much less frequently than inflation rates.
Jeremy Falcon
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Some would see this as a "them" problem.
If you have some jank thinkpad with 4 GB of RAM and that means everything is sluggish, it's just meaning you aren't able to give them as much as you could if they enabled you to do so.
I don't think it would necessarily be a function of salary but it's definitely a consideration in some ways. IDK so much I've ever had a problem where the equipment was just wholly inadequate. But I have been places and seen others where skimping on things like server resources had to cost them more than it saved.
If it's gumming up the progress for multiple people because things take way too long it's just hard to see how the money to improve it isn't less than the money lost in their loss of productivity.
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0x01AA wrote: I would expect at least 1% of my salary for my computer.
I went and did the calculation.
I did My_Annual_Salary * 0.01 (That's the calculation, right?)
I don't want to reveal my salary but this would mean that the company had to spend $10,000 on my computer.
That seems like an awful lot for the company to spend on my computer each year. 
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Ok, ok; maybe an upper limit sould be set 
But on the other hand, if you earn that much, why the tools you use to earn that, should not be in a relation.
[Edit]
Or are you a banker-CEO whose income has nothing to do with the work done. And work done, usually requires tools, except for banker-CEOs of course
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raddevus wrote: My_Annual_Salary * 0.01
...company had to spend $10,000 on my computer.
...spend on my computer each year.
Wow! Congrats man! I put two and two together to figure out you have a 7-digits salary. In my neck of the woods you ain't gonna find many developers getting that.
Either that, or you missed a zero in your computations 
Mircea
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He's joking; it was only $978,942. And wealthy people don't get paid in salary like that (at a job) because it's worst possible tax structure.
Jeremy Falcon
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raddevus wrote: I don't want to reveal my salary using a simple algebraic riddle.
FIFY
Any job openings where you work? I mean, dayum.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs. - Thomas Sowell
A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.
- Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)
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raddevus wrote: I don't want to reveal my salary but this would mean that the company had to spend $10,000 on my computer.
See, I told you it would pay off to start male dancing.
Jeremy Falcon
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0x01AA wrote: I would expect at least 1% of my salary for my computer. Am I exaggerating?
That ratio would taper off the future up you go, for a dev at least, if you include stock options, etc. at a FAANG company. If you're talking base, gross salary then that seems on par for a salaried employee until you reach a threshold. Which I'll say the number is privately, but those talented few who know... know.
I've seen some companies push cheapo laptops on a contractor though. But, if it's cheapo company and you're an employee, your salary probably sucks too. So, 1% holds.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 12 mins ago.
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IMHO, the amount of $ spent on equipment is mostly related to the job(s) one is doing. Salary has nothing to do with it.
FWIW, my average of the last 10 years is 1.2% of my salary on hardware.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
"Hope is contagious"
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I got an email this morning...Back in 2005, someone at this email address purchased SpinRite v6.0.
UNSUBSCRIBE: If you never wish to receive additional news of SpinRite improvements or “Beyond Recall”, our forthcoming secure drive wiping utility, or any new freeware, PLEASE click here to instantly UNSUBSCRIBE and this email address will never be used again.
You may upgrade your copy of SpinRite to v6.1 at no cost.
SpinRite has been significantly improved
After 20 years, SpinRite 6.0 has been updated to 6.1, and as a licensed owner of 6.0, you are invited to upgrade your copy of SpinRite at no cost. That's quite a delay between releases and interesting that GRC kept the record of my purchase for so long!
Anyway, I tried writing the image to a USB stick, then a CD, but couldn't get either to boot - SpinRite runs a a version of FreeDOS - so dug out my old USB floppy drive and picked up the first floppy disk to come to hand...
...which turned out to be a boot disk for SpinRite 6.0!
Of course, I then worked out that the reason things wouldn't boot was the BIOS boot mode (EUFI) setting!
FYI...
My stack of laptops is in the back of the garage.
I still have a large stack of unused writable CDs (and DVDs).
I still have a small stack of unused punch cards.
I have 2 slide rules.
modified 6hrs 10mins ago.
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Plyushkin's disorder Seek HELP
Or send the laptops to me after you update them
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Steve Gibson (of GRC, and author of SpinRite) has often mentioned on his weekly podcast (Security Now) that even though it's been 20 years, he doesn't feel justified to ask existing customers to purchase an upgrade - no matter how far back they go. And he actually respects unsubscribe requests. Anyone who listens to his podcast would immediately realize he's a hardcore developer at heart, not marketing or sales. I give him a lot of kudos for that.
And even though he calls it a point upgrade, it's essentially a full rewrite, primarily to take advantage of disk technologies that have evolved over those last 20+ years. I haven't tried it myself, but based on the feedback he's been relaying on his podcast, people are seeing tremendous improvements in processing time, which was needed given that today's drives are so much larger than they used to be.
Unrelated: This week's podcast is #993 (it's in its...18th year?) Turns out security is a big topic, and he's not about to run out of material to discuss.
I never miss an occasion to say that the technically-minded who cares about cybersecurity (as much I hate using the term "cyber"-anything) would do well to listen to his podcast. Very informative, he's a stickler for accuracy, doesn't go for the attention-grabbing headlines and brings it down to earth. All my personal opinion.
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StarNamer@work wrote: I have 2 slide rules.
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StarNamer@work wrote: I have 2 slide rules.
All these recent posts mentioning slide rules makes me wonder whether or not my father still has the one I remember from my youth.
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