[xnyan]

Average dev salary at my org is north of 100k, but I do work in the US so lets say we have a developer earning half that. At $125 a month, it works out to be around 3% of monthly compensation (not including taxes and benefits). This only has to improve productivity by a tiny amount to be worth it.

[kuratkull]

I think it'd be really hard to prove any single tool provides you a specific productivity boost. Most engineers probably have a tool-set. Which means all those tools work together nicely. Taking one of them out, as well as adding one, might break the whole setup. Usually established engineers are not working in a vacuum, they already have their setups in place, so justifying a 3% extra cost might be very hard to justify for very unclear benefits, if any. I'm not trying to make a definitive argument, just some food for though.

[Sr_developer]

That is not how it works, having a water cooler in the office increase the productivity 100x vs not having water, that does not mean you should pay millions for one. That is a myth invented by SAAS vendors and consultants to justify their sky-high price. The value offered of course factors in the price but many other factors too (scarcity of materials and resource to produce the good,cost of production, maintenance cost, cost of the products of your competitors, risk of vendor lock-in, etc)

[ChrisLomont]

>That is not how it works,

Plenty of places pay X for tools that add more than X in productivity value.

In fact, nearly every tool I have ever gotten at a company worked like this. Most of them are also willing to test pricey tools to see if they would pay off, and when they do, the company starts buying such tools.

If you don't work at such a place, look for a place that values developer time.

[Sr_developer]

I worked for a Fortune 20 company so you can stop the patronizing tone. A paper and a pencil also increases productivity by a lot ( perhaps more than any tool) that does not mean you need to pay 5% of your developer salary by month for them.

[shock-value]

But, you likely would pay 5% of salary (or more) for a paper and pencil (to continue with your analogy) if you had no other choice and there was no alternative tool that could substitute. So I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

[Sr_developer]

So you are repeating my original point, congratulations, it is not only the productivity that factors in the price, go back and read it.

[coolspot]

Unless… You and me we launch a blockchain-AI-SaaS startup selling pencils by subscription!

[Sr_developer]

Create a landing page. I will write a couple of posts saying that Sam Altman and Paul Graham are the smartest guys this century and we will be soon launching a a show HN, new YC company.

[thrower123]

Keurig cups cost more per dev per day than JetBrains tools do...

[stirfish]

Get your devs a French press

[zeku]

Just on this topic--dedicated napping spaces might be the single most powerful dollar for productivity boost you can buy an in-office dev team.

Oh and noise cancelling headphones.