Brendan (btrotter.delete@this.gmail.com) on May 16, 2013 12:29 am wrote:
> Is it reasonable to expect competent developers to be able to handle that extra complexity when
> it's beneficial? I guess this depends on how you define "competent".
> - Brendan

I think it depends much more on your definition of beneficial.

I find it easier to believe that more competent developers will be hired (and for longer development time) when there is an economical satisfaction/benefits, then to believe that there is economical satisfaction for hiring them and yet companies aren’t doing it (or aren’t doing it competently enough).

Unlike 15 or more years ago, when you bought a new CPU you got all the benefits almost immediately, today we are at a point where addition benefits from the same piece of silicon (that come at a fixed cost point) require additional investment from the software vendor.

Now we have different vendor placing different value on that extra performance that can be had (again from the same piece of silicon). And I think that's what Richard was arguing for, i.e. that for many software companies the economical motivation for investing additional capital for that extra performance is simply not there.

Koby