
Nine Reasons Why 8GB Is Only Just Enough - Anon84
http://www.jondavis.net/techblog/post/2009/02/13/Nine-Reasons-Why-8GB-Is-Only-Just-Enough-(For-A-Professional-Business-Software-Developer).aspx
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mixmax
I can't help to notice that all the apps he's talking about that add to the
overall memory load are Microsoft apps.

I'm using an open source editor, gmail, xamp, and some webbased servuces and
I'm having no problems with 1GB of memory.

~~~
Jebdm
I noticed that as well. I run Ubuntu, which could be part of it (although
that's not to say Ubuntu's not a little bloated as well). Just to test this, I
opened up every program that I could think of which I use on a regular basis:

    
    
      - Firefox, with 20 tabs
      - Skype
      - Pidgin
      - Three terminal windows, running Python, vim, and CherryPy
      - Songbird
      - GIMP with a photo loaded
      - Two OpenOffice Writer files
      - Geany (a text editor) with nine tabs
      - Nautilus
      - Three large PDFs (books) using Evince Document Viewer
      - System Monitor (not much)
    

And I'm only at 1.2 GB! (No swap, out of 2 GB total.) I rarely have all of
these programs open at once, either.

While I agree with his point in general, it might be overall more effective to
avoid relying on apps as bloated as Visual Studio. Then, you can save some of
the money on computer upgrades and avoid any negatives that might be
associated with developing on a high-end computer. (Of course, I'm a _moron_
for suggesting that there might be any.)

~~~
mkuhn
I agree with you that using less bloated software could be an option but for
some it just isn't an option and they are bound to use (at least some of) the
bloated software because of the platform they are developing for or other
dependencies...

I think what we can take from the article is that companies bound to use such
software have to invest a bit more for their hardware, and to be honest, the
costs for the additional RAM probably are pretty negligible compared to the
licensing costs for the "bloated software".

Of course 8 GB is a pretty high number but it doesn't come with that high a
price anymore.

~~~
Jebdm
You're right, of course. But there are a lot of people who use this kind of
software that don't actually need to, and who would probably be better off
using other options.

Also, I don't think that licensing costs hurt my point; by using free
software, they could save on that money as well.

------
Hexstream
Nine Reasons Why 8GB Is Only Just Enough... For A Smug, Self-Righteous Windows
Developer.

~~~
nihilocrat
I stopped reading when I read this:

 _Every business software developer should have his own copy of SQL Server
Developer Edition._

edit: Oh god, I didn't notice this nugget:

 _Note to the morons who argue "this is why developers are writing big,
bloated software that suck up resources" .. Dear moron, this post is from the
perspective of an actual developer’s workstation, not a mere bit-twiddling
programmer_

I wonder how this guy manages to hold down a job with such a hostile attitude.

Hell, I can't make this crap up. Here's from another post:

 _People who swear by Linux for the most part only hate Windows for the sake
of hating Microsoft; it has little to nothing to do with the overall quality
of the Windows product. They just feel that they have the moral prerogative to
spread hate of Microsoft throughout the world._

~~~
mixmax
There's a little bit of truth to that last statement though ;-)

~~~
ensignavenger
I think the last statement would be more true if it read: "[people who hate
Microsoft] for the most part only hate Windows for the sake of hating
Microsoft; it has little to nothing to do with the overall quality of the
Windows product. They just feel that they have the moral prerogative to spread
hate of Microsoft throughout the world."

------
tdavis
Quite a few of my start-up friends use laptops exclusively and I've never
understood how they can be very productive on them. Besides the resource
issue, they're only working with a single screen, usually a 15" one at that! I
have a Macbook that I will occasionally use for work (though mostly just for
reading HN after I wake up, as I am now), but a mere 17" of screen real state
and 2GB of RAM is just not enough for the long-term.

Compare this to the 48" of screen and 6GB of RAM I get from my Mac Pro and
there is no comparison. Still, even on that machine I routinely use 4 Spaces
because there's just too much crap to keep on one desktop. Another advantage
is never having to think about what to keep open; everything I use on a daily
basis is always open and accessible in a Space without any waiting. There's no
way I could do this on my laptop.

I think mobile working is a possibility, but I simply don't believe that
laptops can replace desktops when it comes to software development.

~~~
unalone
Some of us can't afford Mac Pros. For me, Macbook Pro is about the limit of
what I can afford.

~~~
tdavis
The 17" MBP is very nearly the same price as a Mac Pro, and nothing says you
need to buy one of those. You could build an impressive Linux desktop for far
less than either of those machines.

~~~
unalone
Really? What's the entry price for the Mac Pro?

~~~
tdavis
$2799, same as 17" MBP.

------
jacquesm
I've never seen someone document software bloat so effectively.

------
lgriffith
Hardware is cheap. People are expensive. However these facts are lost on most
upper management.

I have developed software for four decades. I was expected to develop the next
generation software on what was essentially obsolete systems. I was never
allowed to use development hardware that was much over current entry level
capability. I did it but at what cost of lost opportunity and lost
productivity? The management was stupid cubed if you ask me.

------
neilc
I'm very happy that I upgraded my MacBook Pro to 4GB of RAM -- as depressing
as it may be, it was just painful trying to do work with only 2GB of RAM, and
4GB is barely enough. The biggest memory hog is VMWare, but Eclipse, Firefox,
and OSX itself take up a _lot_ of memory. In addition, you really need your
entire working set of documents in memory, so that means the source code of
all the projects you're working on. Considering the cost of 4GB of RAM for the
MBP, upgrading is a no-brainer.

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magoghm
I use a MacBook Pro with 2 GB, and I'm very happy with it. Would it be nice to
have 4 GB? Yes. Would I work faster with 4 GB? No (I would work much faster if
I just spent less time reading Hacker News, Reddit, Digg, Wikipedia, etc.)

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coryrc
From the title I thought he meant hard drive space.

On my netbook 16GB is plenty and 8GB would be just enough. That's including
all my dev tools. The 1G of RAM is more than enough.

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daleharvey
people developing end user products should be given a machine that matches the
average machine the application will be used on. fast and powerful machines
reserved for fast feedback of large testing.

developing an interface on an 8GB machine then hoping it will run nice and
fast on X users 1GB laptop is just silly.

that aside, I develop entirely on my laptop, I run linux, virtualbox with
windows xp, photoshop + excel, emacs, firefox and a shell and it never breaks
a sweat

~~~
jacquesm
no, they should be given the _worst_ possible machines their application is
still expected to run on, then it will run like greased lightning and use very
little resources for everybody else.

The main reason I see for code bloat is because developers have too powerful
machines.

~~~
daleharvey
yeh I was going to say lowest common denominator, but if they are running
reasonably expensive dev tools then that kinda evens out

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critic
> By quadrupling the performance of your employee's system

But you don't necessarily quadruple the performance by quadrupling memory.

More memory -> slower hybernation

64 bit -> fatter pointers, leading to larger memory consumption

~~~
likpok
64-bit -> more registers (8!) -> fewer memory accesses, so it might even out a
bit.

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antipax
I have 4GB on a regular old Macbook and I've never had any trouble whatsoever
keeping not only Xcode and Firefox running in the background, but also a VM
running XP, VS2008 and Google Chrome on it, among other programs. 8GB is
useful if you need all of your (many many) programs ready to go at once or if
you're dealing with HD video, though.

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ComputerGuru
8GB is almost barely just enough, but that article is fluff.

No one has all those apps running at once, and the numbers are exaggerated.

The real reason 8GB is just enough: open task manager and look at the virtual
memory size for your applications. All that can be a lot faster if you have
the memory to stick it in.

~~~
hedgehog
That number doesn't correspond to how much physical memory an app will use.
Just see how much RAM is free or being used for disk cache during your normal
workload, if that number is less than 500MB you would probably benefit from
more memory.

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ionfish
Running OS X, I just got an upgrade from 2GB to 4GB of RAM. I wouldn't have
bothered--just running the OS, Eclipse etc. is fine--but when I'm running
Photoshop and an instance of XP under VMWare Fusion, things start getting a
little sluggish.

