One: A very many programmers have their tools selected by their jobs, not their own choices.
Two: There are very few competent programmers.
I already have 32GB of RAM plus an M2 Max in my laptop because my company issued it to me. I already have 32GB of RAM and a 9850X3D in my desktop because I play games.
What non-ideological motivation do I have to ration computing resources on my IDE?
If I was coding on a raspberry pi my story would change, but I’m not so I don’t care.
I feel gross explaining this.
If we both have the same exact machine, but I choose to use software that uses substantially less resources -- well -- then I get to run more of that software simultaneously.
if you use computers as some big single-tasked typewriter equivalent then yeah, who cares.
it's not all fucking style and ideology, sometimes behaviors have a decent concrete reasoning.