Re:Why I use old hardware
by bunderbunder on Wednesday January 23, 2019 @12:36PM
(#18980399)
Even that depends on the dev environment.
If you're using a lot of virtual machines, sure. If you're working on something that's inherently RAM-hungry like video processing, sure. If you're working against a local database server, maybe. If you're using something like IntelliJ or ReSharper (but not necessarily Visual Studio), then, <sigh>, yeah, I guess.
If you're doing Web development, OTOH, it's probably better if you not have much RAM. If front-end, because a significant percentage of your users will be using low-RAM devices like smartphones and Chromebooks, and you shouldn't need any more RAM than they do. If back-end, because the production servers will (hopefully) be handling a lot more load than what you're doing in testing, so if you get too comfortable with treating RAM as a plentiful resource in development, that's going to be a recipe for scalability problems.
If you're using a lot of virtual machines, sure. If you're working on something that's inherently RAM-hungry like video processing, sure. If you're working against a local database server, maybe. If you're using something like IntelliJ or ReSharper (but not necessarily Visual Studio), then, <sigh>, yeah, I guess.
If you're doing Web development, OTOH, it's probably better if you not have much RAM. If front-end, because a significant percentage of your users will be using low-RAM devices like smartphones and Chromebooks, and you shouldn't need any more RAM than they do. If back-end, because the production servers will (hopefully) be handling a lot more load than what you're doing in testing, so if you get too comfortable with treating RAM as a plentiful resource in development, that's going to be a recipe for scalability problems.