[pplonski86]

It is about the tools that you are using. The better the tool, the faster the job is done. I always get the best machine I can afford and never regret it. I'm working with data; I have a desktop machine with 256 GB RAM and 36 CPUs; it was expensive, but I can train huge gradient boosting tree models in a reasonable time.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Your response here is exactly what I'm talking about though. For you personally it looks like the choice obviously makes sense given what you're using it for.

But I've seen plenty of developers cry that they need 256 GB RAM and 36 CPUs to do React front-end development. My fundamental problem with this article is the author is showing they have no idea how business works, money is not infinite, and that if every department always got every top-of-the-line ask for their resources and tooling you could easily add a huge, unsustainable amount to your cost structure.

[brailsafe]

> But I've seen plenty of developers cry that they need 256 GB RAM and 36 CPUs to do React front-end development.

Seems a bit hyperbolic. I do front-end development, and upgraded from a 5yr old 13" MBP with 16gb of ram to a 16" M4 Pro with 48gb, and a second lesser M3 Pro for a client. Both are fantastic, and probably the minimum I'd bother trying to work with professionally, anything down to M1 Max would likely be fine, but anything older or with less ram might be too sluggish to be palatable, and it would introduce more friction than necessary. There's not much of a direct time savings to be argued for, but plenty of less obvious pain points that just add up and become irritating when there are better tools one could be working with.