Writing code in a compiled language is one of the last things that still can’t be done instantly on a garden variety home computer. If your compilation process takes more than a few seconds, getting the latest and greatest computer is going to save you time. If compiling takes even 15 seconds, programmers will get bored while the compiler runs and switch over to reading The Onion, which will suck them in and kill hours of productivity.
Debugging GUI code with a single monitor system is painful if not impossible. If you’re writing GUI code, two monitors will make things much easier.
Most programmers eventually have to manipulate bitmaps for icons or toolbars, and most programmers don’t have a good bitmap editor available. Trying to use Microsoft Paint to manipulate bitmaps is a joke, but that’s what most programmers have to do.
At my last job, the system administrator kept sending me automated spam complaining that I was using more than… get this… 220 megabytes of hard drive space on the server. I pointed out that given the price of hard drives these days, the cost of this space was significantly less than the cost of the toilet paper I used. Spending even 10 minutes cleaning up my directory would be a fabulous waste of productivity.
| Author | Joel Spolsky |
| Work | The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code |