Re: An idle rant

From: David Farrell-Garcia (davidf_at_orcasoftware.com)
Date: 01/17/05 

Date: 17 Jan 2005 07:31:23 -0800

Liz wrote:

> Ive always felt that developers need access to two environments,
> something reasonable -> hot to develop on so they can run 3 copies and
> debug them and all sorts.. and hold databases locally as test to
> really hardbash code etc..
>
> and access to the naffest crappest POS that they can find so they can
> check they can use it on the bare minimum.

It really depends on what kind of software you write and who your
customers are. If I can expect little or no income from a end-user who
has "crappy" hardware, then I won't spend a minute testing on that kind
of system. In our particular case, it has played out over and over
again in our vertical market applicaions, that a prospective customer
who is still running Windows 95 with 32 mb Ram is probably not going to
purchase a business solution for $5,000 to $20,000 which is what ours
go for. No assurance that someone with really high-end hardware is
going to either, but at least they have made a commitement to
automating their business that puts them in our prospect pool. There
is just no way to make a blanket statement on what is best for each
shop as there are many variables. I believe you are writing
shareware/freeware apps, if I understood some of your other posts, so
for you, your statement is dead-on. 

-- 
David Farrell-Garcia
Whidbey Island Software LLC
Posted with XanaNews 1.17.1.2