Unpopular opinion: Programmer time is more valuable than machine time. Maintenance is 90% of the life of a system.
That's actually the popular opinion.
Unpopular opinion: programmer time is more valuable than machine time up until the product starts to scale and/or outlives the savings. A programmer spending a week longer on doing something right might cost you a couple thousand dollars up-front, and would repay itself only in a decade. Then you scale 200x, and suddenly that suboptimal code is bleeding you those thousands of dollars a week.
Very unpopular opinion: the above examples is a good case; if your AWS bill gets too large, somebody in the company will start asking questions. What usually happens is that performance is externalized to end-users. It's their CPUs that burn through fossil-fuel-generated electricity that much faster and can no longer run more than a few apps at the same time; it's their mobile phones that need to be replaced a year early because of the aggregate bloat. It's their sanity that's being assaulted by laggy, constantly acting up devices. But it doesn't manifest itself as a separate line item on the company's books, so nobody gives a damn. Instead, laziness and shoddy craftsmanship is explained away by economic self-interest.
Comments
That's actually the popular opinion.
Unpopular opinion: programmer time is more valuable than machine time up until the product starts to scale and/or outlives the savings. A programmer spending a week longer on doing something right might cost you a couple thousand dollars up-front, and would repay itself only in a decade. Then you scale 200x, and suddenly that suboptimal code is bleeding you those thousands of dollars a week.
Very unpopular opinion: the above examples is a good case; if your AWS bill gets too large, somebody in the company will start asking questions. What usually happens is that performance is externalized to end-users. It's their CPUs that burn through fossil-fuel-generated electricity that much faster and can no longer run more than a few apps at the same time; it's their mobile phones that need to be replaced a year early because of the aggregate bloat. It's their sanity that's being assaulted by laggy, constantly acting up devices. But it doesn't manifest itself as a separate line item on the company's books, so nobody gives a damn. Instead, laziness and shoddy craftsmanship is explained away by economic self-interest.
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