Pay Too Much for everything - <AUTHOR> http://allentucker.com/pay-too-much/ <comment><USER3> The idea in this article is sometimes true, but it completely fails to take into account the relentless march of technology. Some items, such as cell- phones or laptops, will be totally obsolete within 10 years no matter how finely made they are. Other items, such as guitars, will not be obsolete since the technology isn't changing quickly, if at all. There will be new digital guitars with funky synth modes every year, but a gibson dobro will still sound like a gibson dobro in twenty years.

Some things fall somewhere in between. Your grandfather's watch is a marvel of mechanical engineering that will keep time adequately for centuries if taken to a watch-shop for maintenance every few years. That maintenance will cost more than buying a new timex would, and the timex will keep far more accurate time. Timex's are disposable. When the timex's battery dies it will probably cheaper to replace it than to replace the battery. However, their function is superior for all practical purposes. Many people currently enjoy the aesthetics of mechanical watches. They're currently enjoying a major surge of collectibility, but that wasn't the case twenty years ago and it may well not be the case twenty years from now.

The real trick is to figure out what _can_ last and what should be treated as disposable. e.g. Say you're building a home theater. Amps have changed very little over the last 20 years. Preamps and receivers go obsolete every few years. If you spend $5000 on a Bryston amp it will easily last 20 years (that's how long it'll be under warranty!), but a Bryston preamp will be hopelessly unusable long before that 20 year warranty runs out.

There are also big variations in short-term durability too that aren't necessarily correlated with price. e.g. Macbook air's and the new retina pro's are gorgeous pieces of engineering, but they're made to be disposable. If you spill coffee on them they're basically done. You can't remove the battery and take them apart to clean them (proprietary screws) like you can with a much cheaper laptop and Apple won't lift a finger to help you. This is a case where our perceptions of what is durable and high-quality can actually lead us to buy something that won't last as long!

<comment><USER4> As an anecdote to add to your great analysis, I know a lot of my engineering coworkers (including me) who refuse to buy new cars. I drive a 15 year old truck not because it's fuel-efficient, not because it's beautiful, not because it has all the features, and certainly not because it needs no maintenance. It's because when it does need maintenance, I can do it and it's relatively cheap and easy. It's the Timex vs pocket watch thing, except in this case the Timex is much more expensive. Repair-ability is decreasing the more computers there are installed in a car.

The one new car I owned quickly became dated, even though I bought it with the latest technology (it even had a Windows Mobile USB port!). My truck doesn't have any technology to become outdated. It's the RHEL of the car world compared to the Ubuntu. Not flashy or cutting edge, but bullet-proof and easy to dig into the internals. I'd rather have something I can put 400k miles on than something with an iPod port or built-in GPS that will be worthless when it hits 150k.

<comment><USER5> Cars are a good example of why "built to last" doesn't make universal sense.

We don't make trucks like we did 15 years ago, because we know what happens to the human body inside a rigid metal shell during a collision. We know that we can design engines and transmissions that will keep you on the road better, keep you out of more accidents and at least halve your fuel bill. And these gains will trivially outweigh the higher costs for maintenance, repair costs and increased frequency of replacement.

Similarly with major appliances like refrigerators, furnaces and hot water heaters. It's not at all uncommon to see people with older versions of those appliances that are 30+ years old, still tickin and trivial to repair and maintain. But they're so horribly inefficient that even if you replace that classic with a modern model that will fall apart the day after its warranty expires, you can save so much more money in the interim that you'll still be ahead after you replace it.

Now, I'm not arguing that you should go out and buy the latest. Or that aiming for longevity and repairability is _never_ right.

I'm just saying that there are trade-offs when something is "designed to last" and "easy to repair". And, particularly when moving parts and electronics are involved, those trade-offs can cost more in the long run.

<comment><USER4> A good point about reliability not being the only factor in buying a car. I drive a Toyota 4Runner, which has a 4-star safety rating. It's from years before pedestrian safety laws, so the pedestrian safety rating is low, but the passenger safety rating is quite good. 20mpg is still hard to get from a V-6 truck engine these days. The only modern safety features I wish I had are hill start assist and traction/stability control. Maybe side-impact air bags.

Your point is perfectly valid for most cars. I would never drive a Corvair just because it's more repairable than a Volt. But there certainly is a market for a dead-simple yet modernly designed car.

<comment><USER5> > _"20mpg is still hard to get from a V-6 truck engine these days."_

True enough. But 4 cylinder engines are turning out 150hp and 3500 pounds of towing capacity these days. So the V-6, in and of itself, may not be an appropriate requirement.

As to the market: perhaps. I'm not saying it's impossible to find a modern middle-ground. But I don't know how many people even _want_ to lift their hood these days.

This past model year it's already started to become somewhat common for commuter cars to ditch the _spare tire_. And perhaps more bothersome, it's pretty difficult to find drivers who really _care_ that they're missing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A while back, I stopped buying the highest-priced goods and started doing research instead. What I found what the best things weren't the highest- priced. I also found that I could find the best items _for me_ because what I care about isn't necessary what others care about.

Using this, I've managed to buy better shoes, toasters, and even a car than I've ever had before, and at less than I would have spent if I hadn't done that research. The car ended up being the cheapest car made by that manufacturer, and I like it better than any other car I've ridden in or driven. (Admittedly, I haven't tried anything over about $50k, but I couldn't afford those anyhow.) I would never have found it if I used price as an indicator of quality, instead of reviews.

The key to reviews is to look over the good reviews. Look at the bad reviews instead. Find out what people hate about it. And then ask yourself: Does that feature matter to me?

My rice maker doesn't make brown rice well at all. Many people complained about that. However, white rice is the only kind I make, and it does a great job on that. So it didn't make sense to spend twice as much money on a better rice maker. I could have spent more money and gotten an objectively better rice maker. But why bother?

So no, I don't agree with paying too much or buying the 'best'. At all.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're actually agreeing with the author without realizing it. Why? Because you decided to buy X because it was valued at a certain price and you could afford it. You didn't buy a "cheap" (in quality) version of the product (since you did your research). Unknowingly you are agreeing with the author. :-)

<comment><USER7> Except the author is arguing that you should use "expensive" as a heuristic (instead of "cheap"). wccrawford is arguing that quality is orthogonal to price.

<comment><USER8> No, he's not.

 _This doesn't always work. Sometimes a cheaper product is actually better. But consider removing price as the default decision criteria._

He's advising you to stop buying the cheapest available, not to buy the most expensive available.

<comment><USER9> Your last sentence contradicts 2 out of 3 of those you quote.

He says sometimes a cheaper product is better, you say he's telling us not to buy the cheapest [but he said it _could_ be better].

He says remove price as the main criteria, you say use price as the main criteria to rule out the cheapest products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't agree with most of this. The idea that price equals quality has long been used by merchants to extract money from consumers, not extend value. Sure it's true of some products and some companies, but overall I'd argue that at best, more expensive things aren't close to being relatively better - by any meaningful measure.

A $300 meal isn't 10x better - in terms of taste (subjective obviously) or nutrition - as a $30 meal. A BMW 3 Series is a better car than a Ford Focus, but looking only at the practical reasons to own a car, it's not even close to having twice the value.

In a lot of cases, brand names bring no value other than the brand. And while that can have a placebo effect, it's not more value. Medicine comes to mind as a great example. You are paying more for marketing and packaging than you are for R&D. The recent thread on memristors even highlighted that R&D costs are 1/100th of total cost, with marketing taking the lion's share.

Quality items appreciate while cheap items depreciate? No consumer good should be viewed as a financial investment. If something does appreciate in 50 years, it'll be more about luck than anything else.

<comment><USER11> A $300 meal can be 10x better than a $30 meal. Most $30 meals are _fine_ , but a $300 meal may be the best meal you have ever had.

<comment><USER12> The key word there is _can_. A $300 meal may be the best meal you've ever had, but spending $300 on a meal isn't a guarantee that it will be. Conversely, it's also possible that $30 meal could be the best meal you've ever had. Less likely, sure, but possible.

It reminds me of advice I've been given from friends who are really into wine: the difference between a $10 bottle of wine, a $50 bottle of wine, and a $100 bottle of wine isn't that the more expensive ones are better, it's that they're more likely to be good.

<comment><USER13> There is at least some evidence that an expensive bottle of wine tastes better _because_ it's expensive. When the cost of the wine is unknown to the taster, the differences disappear.[1] And, when a wine is presented to the taster as expensive it is perceived as better than cheaper wines _even when it is the same wine._ [2]

[1] [http://www.wine- economics.org/journal/content/Volume3/number...](http://www.wine- economics.org/journal/content/Volume3/number1/Full%20Texts/01_wine%20economics_Robin%20Goldstein_vol%203_1.pdf)

[2] [http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/01/15/expensive-wine- tas...](http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/01/15/expensive-wine-tastes- better/)

<comment><USER14> Your first article, at least, comes with a strong caveat: "We find that, _unless they are experts_ , individuals who are unaware of the price enjoy more expensive wines slightly less." (emphasis added)

<comment><USER13> If you and I were to get together and agree on a certain aesthetic, and then we were to declare people who agreed with our aesthetic "experts", and then we were to test random people against our set of experts, our experts would agree with our aesthetic more often than the others.

That says nothing about peoples enjoyment. If people, experts or not, enjoy expensive wine more than inexpensive wine, they still enjoy it more even if their reasoning is flawed.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You seemed to originally be claiming that there isn't an appreciable aesthetic difference between cheap wine and expensive wine, and that all wine is basically the same when you don't think about price ("When the cost of the wine is unknown to the taster, the differences disappear.")

But the article you provided seems to say that there _is_ a difference between cheap and expensive wine - it's just that most people are not good enough to detect it. I think this is important because it invalidates the claim that "all wine is indistinguishable." There's a difference, it's just hard to detect, and the pros are better at it.

To return to the original point of the thread, though, wine actually is a pretty interesting example that complicates the original poster's point. The more you wine you drink, the more important it is to pay extra. It's not that the expensive stuff _isn't_ better, it's just that you have to care a whole lot to appreciate the difference, so most people actually will be fine just getting relatively cheap wine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think the Op is getting as much love as he deserves.

      Many of the intangible pieces that make up the quality of a product or service
      go out the door when we're getting a deal. They're doing a favor and sometimes
      when we bargain, people resent us.

This is absolute gold when it comes to longer business relationships. I have come through to believe that entirely too many fail simply because someone is resentful over terms.

As for the relation between cost and quality, I agree with many here that it isn't clear-cut. But the relation does exist. You just need to be discerning, which is why the Op writes:

      Because we only buy quality, we are forced to wait until we can afford what we
      really want.  That wait time leads to better decisions, and it forces us to
      make due with what we have.

# Edit: formatting

<comment><USER16> it cuts both ways, you don't want to get 'sucker' stapped on your forehead early in a business relationship

obviously, good relationships have give a take both ways, a little framing of what you expect early on, can pay alot of dividends over the long run

<comment><USER15> True. I guess the ideal is to be seen as someone who is generous but has high expectations and will not hesitate to terminate the relationship and move business elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The highest priced items are that way mostly due to the marketing costs associated with selling high priced items and trying to create the illusion that it is better quality.

Lifetime guarantees are pretty much worthless because most people will forget they have one, lose the item or lose the documents related to it.

Top pay doesn't attract the best people. Top work attracts the best people because the best people have most likely realised that money doesn't really matter if you're working on something that doesn't provide meaning for you.

The sweet spot for quality is to figure out the approximate average price of the product you want to buy and then pay a little above that.

</comment><comment><USER18> This article is based on a number of nonsensical assumptions:

1) That paying more equates to higher quality. It doesn't. Your £30 t-shirt will fall apart every bit as quickly as your £3 multi-pack from Primark.

2) That you want to have something last a lifetime. Just last weekend, my dad was complaining about having no good jig-saws. Then followed up with "of course, I could buy a good one, but I only use them once every 5 years, so they're knackered when I need them anyway".

3) When you want quality, you can't just borrow it off someone else.

I'm not against paying more for something e.g. my uncle has expensive joinery kit because his day job is a joiner. I simply dislike the mentality of "I must pay top-dollar for everything", before you've evaluated what you actually want.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not sure I'd say this article is wrong, exactly, but it sure seems like all the arguments in it are very shallow. Yeah, I have my great-grandfather's pocketwatch, and it still runs. But it has required repairs that each cost significantly more than buying ten brand new cheap watches would have. It's the least reliable timepiece I own. And I hardly ever use it, because my cellphone is always with me and is considerably more accurate -- and is not the only heirloom I have from my namesake great-grandfather! Its main value to me is pure sentimentality.

I'm sure other watches were purchased by my other great-grandfathers; to the best of my knowledge, none of those watches survived to the present day. It might be because they only bought cheap watches. But it might also be that they bought expensive watches and those watches broke or got lost. Looking solely at what survived to today tells you very little about what was purchased yesterday.

And I'm sure my great-grandfather didn't buy the most expensive watch possible. If it had come down to the choice of buying a watch which cost $10 more, or saving that money to give me $200 today, I'd take the money!

</comment><comment><USER20> On the other hand, I've noticed, and others have observed as well, that generally more expensive items are more likely to have poor reviews on Amazon, for example. The most likely explanation is that higher prices lead to higher expectations, which are often hard to meet.

Another point I'd like to make is that cheap stuff can be totally awesome, especially if you don't need or want it to last a lifetime. Example: IKEA. My girlfriend changed her mind about the furniture she wanted in her apartment several times over the few years she was there, and was able to update the look to be exactly what she wanted for very little money. Compare that to the armoire I payed an ass load of money for that will surely last a lifetime, but doesn't really fit anywhere in my current home.

<comment><USER21> Though I imagine you could easily sell your armoire for close to what you paid for it (if indeed it hasn't actually gained value). I don't think there is a market for second hand IKEA furniture.

You have to weigh up between the money you lose in scrapping the IKEA apartment vs. the dead money tied up in quality furniture "inventory" and the relative difficulty in selling that to free up the funds again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wish the article was true. It'd be so nice to simply pay a premium and rest assured that it's an equitable approach: you get an improved product, the retailer gets a higher profit, the distributor, the people actually creating the product get a cut.

The reality is you can't rely on any single of these to be true, and as soon as you're willing to buy something and especially if you're willing to pay 10, 50 or 100% more than the absolute minimum you're the prime meat of the other half of the worlds who make it their business to ensure that it's _not_ an equitable approach.

</comment><comment><USER23> One key way in which the article is right on-the-money, so to speak, is to highlight the ridiculous frenzy that we go into to save disproportionately small amounts of money.

Our audience here is mostly programmers. Programmers should all know the golden rule of optimization: _profile it first_. Don't take it on intuition or faith that "this is what was slowing me down" unless you've measured it. The same principle applies in personal finance. Group together your expenses into some key logical categories -- "groceries", "tech", "rent", "retirement", "health", "nights out", and whatever else makes sense to you. Then add them up, do the maths. Know what you're spending and how it compares, and how the categories make up your monthly budget.

Frugality is generally quite good, but just like code, it's quite possible to overoptimize it into a time-sink.

Also, it's key that you see both the high-cost single-time expenses and the low-cost-but-everyday expenses and you get an idea for how they compare. Depending on how often you visit Starbucks, it might be a very good or very insignificant change to brew your own coffee at home; go on and measure it.

The single most surprising thing that I discovered about this process was that, even though I feel like I give money to beggars in the street "often" (i.e. whenever I see them and they ask) and give "a lot" (i.e. much more than is normally typical), the amount that I give actually works out to almost nothing on a monthly basis. Like, I'm poor and right now I have no proper employment (they don't pay you to do a Master's degree) and yet I can still afford to be generous to the people who are down on their luck, and it's just nothing when you compare it to the amount I'd save if I stopped drinking cola. I've got no income, but I'd still easily spend € 50 on food to throw a party for my friends, so long as it happens only about once a month, twice max.

<comment><USER24> I think you did a great job of trying to relating this topic to the programming mentality here. Many of the comments here seem to focus on how technology should not be purchased expensively or how this or that is not worth the extra money. The author does not set in stone that you must go for the more expensive item. He does qualify that some things, such as phones, are disposable and should not be approached with the "buy expensive" mentality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As always with the "Do <not-very-popular thing> and get <obvious-benefits>" articles, there is an obvious question: why doesn't everybody do that? I cannot speak for other people but here are my reasons for not always going for the quality over price.

First, I obviously cannot always afford the high price. When I bought the car I had checked the failure reports and decided it just wasn't worth paying an additional few months salary to get the failure probability down 2-3 percent a year (checked other parameters too, similar conclusions.) And yeah, I waited till a good deal was available to me.

Second, getting a quality item might cost even more of my personal time - finding out which one is actually good and searching for a local vendor isn't exactly free.

Third, maybe I don't even want an expensive item that lasts forever. Suppose I want to get into photography but don't really know if I'll keep this hobby. I'd intentionally google "cheap beginner dslr" and stick with the findings. Chances are that by the time it needs replacement I'll be ready for a more fancy gear or bored with the new hobby. Win-win :)

<comment><USER26> 1\. It's not always true that things that are more expensive are also higher quality. But the reverse is true: things of higher quality are more expensive. Because they're made of better materials, because they were grown naturally, because they were made of natural ingredients, because they were tested... better stuff is usually made with more effort or better material.

2\. Because of #1, distinguishing genuine high quality stuff from a simple ripoff takes critical thinking. People don't like thinking too much, don't like analyzing, and critical thinking is unpopular especially in United States of America. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The russians have a saying for this: "I'm too poor to buy cheap". Really says everything about it.

<comment><USER28> My stepfather is a carpenter and the maxim he passed down to me is "buy cheap, buy twice". It applies particularly strongly to the tools of your trade, doubly so if those tools are physical things like saws and hammers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've found this to be very true in many ways when buying 'quality'. Buy 'quality' and not 'crap', and you will always be happier and the OP's statements are all true.

I think price is a poor estimator for quality since marketers know that price alone can signal quality, so it stands we need something beyond price.

How do we determine if something is quality when price is unreliable.

<comment><USER30> Totally agree. I'll happily spend more if I know I'm getting something that is better quality. But figuring out whether those £150 hiking boots are any better than the £30 ones (to use a recent personal example) is very difficult. It generally takes experience. Lacking that I try to find advice from a trustworthy source. The internet has helped massively in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think what the article is trying to say is "Buy the best quality that you can afford". Unfortunately the Author has completely conflated Quality with Price.

Higher price != Better Quality (not always anyway)

<comment><AUTHOR> And to be fair to the author, he mentions the same

> This doesn't always work. Sometimes a cheaper product is actually better. > But consider removing price as the default decision criteria.

<comment><USER32> The main point - rule of thumb - that can be derived:

 _consider removing price as the default decision criteria_

Most of the comments here (and parts of the original article) are elaborations on applying this principal. So price is not necessarily correlated with quality, but using price as a default decision criteria results in suboptimal outcomes (stuff that is not really "better" or consumers that are happier or otherwise benefited).

<comment><AUTHOR> Once again the author asks you to _consider_ removing the price as a decision criteria. He's still exactly talking about the same thing as you are. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I definitely disagree. Maybe sometimes, paying twice as much gives you something that lasts ten times longer. Or maybe, you will pay five times as much, and get something that (hopefully) lasts a bit longer.

I use a lot of earphones, and they tend to break quite fast. Once or twice, I decided to move away from the usual 15$ models and pay 60$ for better brands, with good reviews, and everything. Did they last longer ? Of course not. They sounded marginally better, but nothing worth the price..

The thing is, price is an indicator of positioning. It's a marketing tool, and it's generally not correlated to quality. Buying the very cheapest is usually not a good idea, because the manufacturer probably did everything it could to actually beat competitors and propose the lowest price. But other than that, that's pretty much all you can know in advance.

Knowing what items are made of good quality and will last longer (and therefore are worth paying an extra for) is very hard. So, my reasoning on that is that I prefer to spend less money on something, since on average, it will live just as long.

<comment><USER34> Well, the $60 earphone actually comes with a 2 year warranty... whereas the $15 one does not.

<comment><USER35> Buy fewer than four pairs of $15 headphones in two years and you're still ahead. At least, you're still ahead financially; value is virtually impossible to quantify when you take into account subjective qualities like sound, appearance and comfort.

<comment><USER34> The $15 earphones last 3-4 months and I'm tired of spending an hour every few months to pick an ear phone, as well of the "music down time" that entails. That's why I started paying more. Hopefully my $60 ear phones last longer. I would rather not have to rely on the warranty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> But there is a "new - well not very new exactly -" economical trend to build products that have an end of life carved on them. So buying expensive stuff does not mean having long lasting products anymore. It was an old time story.

</comment><comment><USER37> People who are too lazy to ammortize will spend a lot more money in the long run. The perfect example is the _hilarious_ subsidized cell phone market in the US.

</comment><comment><USER21> For me the most difficult thing about buying "quality" is the effort required in researching what the quality product is. It's been mentioned that price isn't always a good indicator, and the mainstream stores generally don't cater for people looking for quality.

For example, I'm buying a set of screwdrivers for a DIY job. I know I'll need screwdrivers for the rest of my life, I want to buy quality ones. I go to some big DIY store expecting a good range of screwdrivers. What I get is a selection of mickey-mouse screwdrivers (£5 for a set of 20) and some middle- of-the-road-but-overpriced screwdrivers (£20 for a set of 20). There is no "buy these and never buy another screwdriver again" set for £60-100.

You can get these, but it takes considerable effort to track them down.

</comment><comment><USER38> A lot of people tend to buy middle-priced things. Marketers rely a lot on this fact, actually, to take advantage of your ignorance.

I've found it's much better to avoid middle-priced things, most of the time. Usually, the cheapest option will meet your needs just as well.

But then you need to identify the things in your life that really contribute to your happiness, and then pay what's necessary for full quality in those.

I spend top dollar on fresh meat and vegetables and on my kitchen pans and chef's knives and olive oils for salads. But I have the cheapest vegetable peeler and spatula and paring knives and toaster and olive oil for frying.

</comment><comment><USER39> Author here - There are many good points here. The purpose of my article was to give a different perspective from the default "buy whatever is cheapest" method that I believe most people follow. Obviously it would be an error to buy things that that aren't better for more money, but I believe this error is often better than the opposite error, buying twice. A good example: I'm writing this on a 10 year old laptop running 1900x1200. Thanks for the comments and feedback.

</comment><comment><USER40> One has to differentiate. There are things that are worth to have once and for life. But most things I gladly buy cheap - because I know I can dispose them later and not a fortune is lost. What If I spend much money on fashionable things that I like, but dislike in 2 years? I rather swap out most of my cheap stuff over the years rather than worry what will last longest and if I might still like it and so on.

<comment><USER41> Indeed. Since the article mentioned cell phones: I would say on average, it costs about $200/year to own a smartphone (service not included). $6000† if you maintain that for 30 years. Yet I cannot imagine paying $2,000 for a smartphone that will provide uninterrupted service for 30 years. It is far cheaper to have the single upfront cost, but the technology progresses so rapidly that your device probably won't even work with the communications systems of the day by then. It makes a huge difference on what you are buying.

† Realistically more like $15,000+ if you start to include the costs of not having that money, but we'll keep the calculations simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Reminds me of some gift buying advice I read. Given a specific budget, don't get a big-but-cheap item, but a higher-quality but smaller/simpler item. The latter is more likely to be valued and retained.

I think the example given, for a golfer, was a crafted/precious golf tee over a trashy electronic putting game. (Ignoring, of course, the fact that the tee might easily get lost.)

</comment><comment><USER43> I associate old with quality more than price.

e.g. My dad has 2 Bosch drills ( <http://i.imgur.com/aCkaq.jpg> ). Roughly 20 years old. When you hold them in your hand you just know that it'll last another 40 years. As a result I have a really difficult time taking any of the modern drills seriously.

</comment><comment><USER44> Feeling insecure about your place in life? Worried you're not happy enough, cool enough, or loved enough? You clearly aren't spending enough money. Don't bother creating things or building interpersonal relationships. Spend more time thinking about acquiring physical goods and making sure you're _only getting the best_.

</comment><comment><USER45> The article reminds me of what I learned in a marketing:

Value = Benefits / Cost <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_%28marketing%29>

Marketing comes into play. If not, items for sale would be using cost-based pricing.

A Mac and a PC would both can accomplish the same task. But one is more expensive than another. Being cheaper doesn't necessarily mean it won't last as long.

Tipping is one area that I don't understand about cultures that have them. Generally, I would expect the tip to be included in the price of the food. Why waste my time and have me figure out what amount to tip? Personally, I don't see the perceived value of tipping.

In some way, how much you pay is also determined by how you see yourself, or in some cases want others to see you.

</comment><comment><USER46> I highly recommend The Paradox of Choice [http://www.amazon.com/Paradox- Choice-Why-more-less/dp/006000...](http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why- more-less/dp/0060005688)

To quote from the article: "People who constantly try to always get that great deal end up spending all their time chasing those deals and never actually get things done. I've seen people do this their entire lives, and it is debilitating."

You can say the same about people who spend all their time trying to constantly get "the best" product. Figure out a few things that are important to you and maximise these - whether on quality or price. For the rest, learn to accept "good enough" and get on with your life doing things that matter for you.

</comment><comment><USER47> The problem is that the modern consumer cannot associate cost with quality. I usually buy the cheapest appliance I can find (microwave, coffee machine, lawn mower) because it has the fewest bells and whistles and is likely the only one I can fix myself.

<comment><USER48> If I don't have the time to really look into things, I go with the cheapest too.

\- You usually have exactly the quality you paid for, so no surprises here.

\- It's often more ecological. If factory A can produce more stuff with same money than factory B, they must be doing something right. Another way to look at this would be: if you have to make shovels dirt cheap, you can't use barrels of oil/shovel, because you would have to pay for that oil.

I really cannot prove this cheap is ecological, but I've noticed that this holds true in plastic Christmas-trees, cucumbers and majority of unprocessed meat products. Chicken production should cause only 1/5 of the problems that beef production. Surprise, surprise chicken also cost's 1/5.

<comment><USER49> Where I live, ground chuck goes for $4/lb, and chicken breasts go for $7/lb. Not sure what the cost per pound of an entire steer versus an entire chicken, but I don't see the same price variance that you're writing about.

Also, the ecological impact might be because Crappy Factory A is manufacturing cheap shovels and dumping their toxic waste in a local river, while Factory B has to charge more because it's following industry standards and using a reputable waste handler.

Or Crappy Factory A might be using underage employees, or dumping product to eliminate its competition.

Drawing conclusions about manufacturers based on pricing is dangerous.

<comment><USER48> "Drawing conclusions about manufacturers based on pricing is dangerous." I completely agree. But in my opinion, drawing conclusions about manufacturers based on reputation is as dangerous. And it takes time to get that reputation info. Time I don't have many times.

Only reliable way to have good conclusions about manufacturers is to examine their business throughly. That's obviously just impossible in most cases.

PS. Chicken breast is expensive here too. I buy whole legs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The key part of that is the line about services and tips. Just being a generous tipper gets you better service, and specially if you are a regular at the same restaurant or bar. 20% by default with an occasional bump up to 25% in tip gets you remembered and the servers get to know you.

I've had such a good relationship at some of my regular restaurants to the point where I once had ups deliver a package to the bar for me when I was out of town. Other places, the staff starts comping your drinks. My best one was the manager at a restaurant giving me a blanket 20% discount on anything I buy (I tip at least 25% after they put in that discount).

In the long run, you get better service if you pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Design determines manufacturing costs. Engineering determines durability. Marketing determines price. Coordinating all three is essential to delivering value. It's absurd to suggest that any one (or all) of them offer protection from obsolescence.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> > This is so weird to me. No one haggles over $5 on the price of a car, but it > seems that everyone needs a tip calculator to determine if they should pay > 21.50 or $22.00 for a meal.

A $5 on a 2000 is 0.25% and a $0.50 on $20 meal is 2.5%

<comment><USER52> Is this relevant? If I get £50 off a house purchase and then tip the next waiter I meet £50 on a £50 meal, I'm no better off but the waiter will be ecstatic and the house-seller probably not more morose. The percentages are not terribly relevant to _happiness_ , which is not well-correlated with money saved--see Dickens for more details. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> My point was you save more for on $0.50 on a meal than a $5 on a car. In terms of pure monetary value, it is relevant. This comment was more in the light of an "alternate" theory as the author doesn't appreciate the fact that people haggle over $0.50 on a tip.

<comment><USER53> In terms of pure monetary value it is irrelevant, actually. Yes, $0.50 is much more a saving relative to meal price than car price, but it's still $0.50, aka. insignificant amount of money, usually not worth the time it takes to argue for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I liked the article in general, but this got me:

 _I usually eat at the same few restaurants all the time. They're maybe 10% more expensive, usually locally owned, and the food doesn't come out of a frozen pre-made bag before being tossed in the oven. I never tip less than 20%, and I'm not an asshole….at restaurants._

I don't understand this thought process. Why not pay 100% tip then? Is the 20% number somehow magical and affords the ability to be elitist? So if I tip 15%, which is the average suggested tip in Western Canada, I'm somehow an asshole???

<comment><USER55> Tip well enough that your generosity will be noticed by the staff.

There are advantages to tipping at the 90-th percentile (not a 90% tip!), especially if you are a frequent customer. You will be remembered.

Note, "asshole" has nothing to do with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Instead of overpaying, I think it's better to get the best product you can for the money you have. It does require you to learn how to recognize quality and know the prices, but it pays off in the end.

For example, I wouldn't buy a Ferrari or even Porsche 911 (both high quality cars, no doubt, but expensive) when a Nissan GTR R35 performs just as well and costs less.

All three will last a lifetime with a bit of care (I hate how people just use their tech without any maintenance, then wonder why "the POS" broke down!), so why pay more (aside from the design)?

<comment><USER57> Some people have other criteria to buying a car, emotional more often than not. For example, Ferrari's and Porsche's are known to a lot of common folk and associated with rich people, GTR - not so much. Also, different cars have different feel to driving them, different sound isolation, suspensions, seating position and road view, these tiny bits can be evaluated subconsciously even though you're after performance.

If I based my purchase only on performance I'd buy BMW S1000RR which performs just as well (albeit comes with less safety) than the other 3 and cost just a fraction!

<comment><USER48> I thought this too. Motorcycles are probably the most cost effective way to go from 0 - 100km/h below three seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The problem with this "buy for life" stuff is that how do you determine what is really a "buy for life" product rather than just an over-priced "brand?"

For example, I could go out and buy a $200 pair of sunglasses but depending on where I buy them they can either be poor quality (e.g. fashion brands, sunglass hut, etc) or exceptional (e.g. fishing shops, sailing suppliers, workman-glasses, etc).

You would expect reviews to give you an accurate way to tell but people often review a product by the way it makes them FEEL rather than about the product its self.

<comment><USER59> You answered your own question: given a choice, if you can buy from the supplier that sells to industrial/commercial users, the quality will usually be better.

e.g., I buy my T-Shirts from Tractor Supply. They are cheaper, _much_ thicker and last longer than the ones I bought from American Apparel. Farmers are harder on clothing than the average urban dweller, I'm guessing.

The tools I buy from McMaster-Carr or Fastenal may cost the same or slightly more than the tools (often the same brands) from Home Depot or the local hardware store, but they are much better quality.

<comment><USER60> The lightweight fabric at American Apparel is a premium feature.

<comment><USER59> To whom? I can poke a hole in it by just looking at it the wrong way. I'm buying a T-Shirt, not a pair of pantyhose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I agree with most of the ideas in this article with the small exception of the example he gives for services and hiring "the best firm in the country." I think you're mostly paying for overhead and bloat in those cases, and I would prefer to work with "the guy down the street" if I can (in which case I'd want to find the best "guy down the street," regardless of cost).

Other than that, it amazes me how people won't spend for quality in situations where it clearly is in their best interest for the long-term...

</comment><comment><USER62> Would have preferred re-reading the Wikipedia article, personally (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_preference) as it was better written, and considerably less self-satisfied in tone.

</comment><comment><USER63> On the topic of paying less, there's a saying which goes something like this : "the cheapest price you can get for a thing is to not buy it" [1]. Of course this can't be applied for everything but a lot of people, myself included, tend to buy a lot of gadgets they don't need and don't use. This is a simple advice but I think it can go a long way to saving money.

[1] if someone has the exact quote, I'll be thankful for it.

</comment><comment><USER64> The author is right but the problem at the moment is that more and more, you cannot correlate quality with price. That is, expensive gears can be of low quality. It is harder and harder to even be able _to pay more knowing that you get more_.

Also, the point missing is that _you need to take care of your expensive gears_. You need to put money into maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER65> What about the selection bias? You don't see the watches your grandfather bought that didn't make it down to you because they broke. Of course the few carefully selected things that have survived and been handed down are the exceptional pieces!

</comment><comment><USER66> Partly true, but I guess most of don't buy new things when the old ones are totally worn out. It is more like we just some new stuff for a change, not necessarily because what we have is broken. So it doesn't automatically save you money.

</comment><comment><USER67> Great modern defense of penny-wise and pound-foolish.

The challenge is automation and commodification pushes us towards the lowest common denominator. Look at airlines, being forced into price, not quality.

</comment><comment><USER68> Looks like an interesting article, but I can't bear to read it. Too much side- scrolling on my Blackberry. Why doesn't the text autofit my screen like other pages do?

I'll have to read it when I get home.

<comment><USER69> It's quite readable on my iPhone in landscape and even in portrait, perhaps you should have bought a better phone like the article suggests?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Well, that was a very long way of saying "you get what you pay for".

</comment><comment><USER71> A lot of commentators missed the point: "Sometimes a cheaper product is actually better. But consider removing price as the default decision criteria."

It's simple and good advice.

</comment><comment><USER72> This is how I feel about my computers. I don't want a "good deal" when it comes to price. I'll spend a lot, and get a lot in return.

</comment><comment><USER26> We have a saying:

"Poor people can't afford inexpensive stuff."

<comment><USER73> Poor people end up getting worse deals on things though since they often have fewer resources available to them. If they wanted to pay more for something that will last, they may not have that option if they don't live in or around an affluent neighborhood. It's more expensive to be poor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Generally: Cheap jeans last forever. Expensive jeans tear in about a week.

<comment><USER73> Actually cost has very little relation with cost to quality in denim jeans, besides that there is a production cost for higher quality denim fabric and stitching which doesn't seem to factor much into pricing besides increasing the minimum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> > My favorite pair of jeans gets worn 10 times more often than my other jeans. > If I did away with the other jeans, I could afford to buy more of those > things I really love.

This took me embarrassingly long to realise. Instead of buying clothes because they were pretty nice and on sale, buy only what you absolutely love, and pay full price. Instead of having "favourite underwear", get rid of everything that's not your favourite and make sure you only own favourites.

Yeah, it costs more at first. But over time you build up a wardrobe of high quality clothes you love. Quality over quantity, indeed.

<comment><USER76> huh. my jeans usually fail through use; they don't usually languish.

The thing is? I have some costco brand jeans I bought during the first dot-com that I still wear. they were under $15. Actually, at the same time I bought a bunch of designer jeans. The designer jeans all failed (at least one of them catastrophically... dramatically ripping the crotch wide open as I lifted a server in front of something of a crowd.) within a year of purchase.

My experience has been that expensive things are not always better. In fact, expensive clothing is usually designed for rich people, who don't need to lift things or trace cables through crawlspaces, and who will want clothing of the new style next year anyhow.

Clothing designed for working people is usually much more durable. And yeah, you can sometimes get increased durability by buying something more expensive within that sector? but the nicest dickies brand work pant is on par with the designer jeans they sell at target, price-wise.

So yeah, in general? if you are selecting for durability in clothing? the price signal is actually the opposite of what you want to look at.

<comment><USER77> I have a friend who used to buy jeans from Costco. If he was ever with me when I was buying clothes, he would always be shocked at the money I was spending on jeans (I'm not talking designer, I mean £40 high-street jeans, that kind of thing). He would say that I could buy 2 or 3 pairs for the same price at Costco and there'd be no difference.

I challenged him to buy a pair and now that's all he wears. They last longer (his old ones used to rip at the crotch) and feel much nicer to wear. However, you're right, price sadly isn't too good an indicator now. I doubt that spending £100 on jeans will provide much improvement over the kind of jeans I wear but buying slightly more expensive - as opposed to dirt-cheap - <USER2> definitely worthwhile.

<comment><USER76> eh, I think that most of what you are paying for is, well, paying more.

I mean, today, the kids are buying $400 jeans that are thick and tough (then they don't wash them, which sounds disgusting, but what do I know?) but, you know, at least they are probably durable. But during the first dot com? the expensive jeans were made of this super thin denim that was then pre-stressed at the factory;

So yeah, in '99? if you walked in to a store and bought the very cheapest jeans you could get, you'd get a medium weight denim that was reasonably durable. If you spent USD$50-$80 for the 'calvin klein' low end designer stuff? it was this ridiculously thin denim that had been bleached to hell.

But yeah, my point is that if you really do choose your product based on price positioning, rather than on the merits (and price) of the product? you are likely making suboptimal choices. Just because there is a more expensive version and a cheaper version available, that doesn't make the middle of the road choice the most reasonable.

A more recent example: I recently got a giant TV for the office for my montoring setup, and I lost the HDMI cable it came with.

I went to Frys, and the first HDMI cable I saw was the $150 "monster cable' version. So I look a little further, and I see a $15 cable by some middle of the road cable company. I look further, down on the bottom, and I see a $1.50 HDMI cable with no brand.

as far as I can tell, they were the same gold-plated HDMI cable. Of course, I bought the cheapest version and it worked just fine.

I mean, I always spend the extra money for ECC ram and for 'enterprise' or 'raid edition' drives in stuff that matters. Yeah, if I get more of what I want for the money, I'll pay more. But I have to see evidence that I'm getting more of what I want. I'm unwilling to pay extra for a label that says I paid extra.

<comment><USER78> Is it just me, or do jeans seem very cheap in America?

In Sweden, a pair of regular Levi's jeans might cost you 1000 SEK, which is about $136. The designer jeans might cost 1500+ SEK.

<comment><USER76> Levi's are what I'd call 'designer jeans' or maybe low end designer jeans. I mean, uh, I might be using that word incorrectly, but yeah, they are very expensive compared to off-brand jeans of similar quality. (I believe you can mostly evaluate the quality of jeans with your eyes and your hands.) I dono exactly how much I'd pay for them here, just, well, probably more than I'm willing to pay.

<comment><USER79> Levi's are "Name brand" or something like that. The more expensive stuff in box stores are designer branded or something like that, not actually designer clothing.

Macy's is probably the low end for actual designer stuff.

And yeah, jeans are cheaper in the U.S., Levi's go for ~$40-$60.

<comment><USER76> ah. Then I am using the word incorrectly, and I have no experience with designer clothing. I guess it could be great? seems unlikely, but what do I know? The designer brand stuff sounds like what I'm talking about- it's clearly made to look a certain way, and long-term durability has little to do with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I got a really good workgroup printer, paid more than twice as much as for a cheap one.

I loved it but had to leave it when I moved -- just too heavy.

(And anyway, the Mac support wasn't good a couple of O/S versions later, but it still worked well with Linux.)

My takeaway from this has more to do with negotiating moving packages (and Samsung support of old customers, grumble) than anything else.</comment>


Portable Code: How To Check If A Machine Is 32 Bit Or 64 Bit - <AUTHOR> http://www.safercode.com/blog/2009/03/10/portable-code-how-to-check-if-a-machine-is-32-bit-or-64-bit.html Writing portable code is very important but it is one of the aspects that most people neglect until it is too late to realize its importance. Till few years ago, most people writing code for personal computers were not worried about the data sizes on their machines. They didn't even think whether the machines, on which their code would be running, would be 32 bit or 64 bit. <comment><USER2> Not really sure how useful this is... even if it was practical to adapt datatypes at runtime, it would still be extremely painful. Surely just using portable types is vastly easier and straightforward.

(or am I missing something?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, using portable data types is much easier. But I thought about this when we had to make our code work with some legacy code (which we couldn't change) and the outputs were in non-portable data types.</comment></comment>


Amazingly Bad APIs - <AUTHOR> http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/05/amazingly-bad-apis.html <comment><USER2> That's a good post. The same thing he describes with Java, with the UML and the "abstraction" quest, happen on big .NET projects. C# is a fine language if that's your thing, but boy look out for the UML architects and the patterns. You'll have a tough time doing things like, "I just want to display a person's name on the screen" without getting into adapters, visitors, etc.

<comment><USER3> The downside is obviously the prolixity. The upside, of course, is that if you ever want to slightly deviate from the default implementation in another language, it's a huge pain. If you notice you're doing the same image transformation multiple times, take the few hours (or few minutes with a Google search) it takes to get something put together that works exactly as you want it. Whenever I'm writing in a language with lots of libraries, I find myself compromising on functionality for the sake of convenience.

And it's not as if Java isn't giving you more flexibility. How do I tweak that Python code to make the image load faster? Can I get Bicubic interpolation on the resize? How well do those image objects integrate with other parts of python, i.e. are they basically just special objects for this library or could they be used in other ways later?

As a person who doesn't mind writing code and whose IDE autogenerates a lot of boilerplate anyway, I think I'll take the 100 line hit so I know what's going on.

<comment><USER4> i.thumbnail([220, 133], Image.BICUBIC)

Having everyone rewrite those 100 lines is really inexcusable. Throwing in a few convenience functions to make the common case simple would not detract from the "flexibility" one bit. It shows that they gave zero thought to what people will actually do with the library.

BTW, want to take a stab at writing the "save at different quality level" code? (since you don't mind writing lots of code) You can post your solution here.

<comment><USER3> I didn't mean to detract from your original point. I think you're right, it's good to have good libraries. I was just pointing out that there are some advantages to the way Java normally works. Anyway, as Java's such a popular language, you can get away with copying other people's 100 lines if you really need to. A quick Google search turned up an image scaler outright.

By the way, I think it's kind of unfair for you to link to the interface definitions rather than some implementation for Java. java.awt.Image is probably just as inscrutable, but at least it does something.

edit: While I'm at it, one point that I didn't quite make clear, but should be noted is that Image in Java is used all over the place, so its interface is going to be pretty much targeted at not missing any possible use case. If you're interested in a narrow-scoped pixel image application, why not use some Java image processing library? Sun's got one: <http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/desktop/media/jai/>

<comment><USER5> _'... you can get away with copying other people's 100 lines if you really need to ...'_

Owch! that will come back to bite you. Wouldn't it be better to re-write, re- factor to reduce complexity and get cleaner code?

 _'... think it's kind of unfair for you to link to the interface definitions rather than some implementation ...'_

because it's the interface that we are stuck with & have to work with

 _'... If you're interested in a narrow-scoped pixel image application, why not use some Java image processing library? ...'_

because it's not COSHER & I do not want to be locked into using non-free software ~ <http://wearcam.org/cosher.htm>

<comment><USER3> "because it's the interface that we are stuck with & have to work with" is blatantly wrong. You can use anything you want to manipulate images; don't feel bound to using the standard Java Image class. To my knowledge, there's no standard python image class, so there's not even a comparison here.

As to your other points, I'm not sure why you assume copying code leads to that code being bloated or unclean. Bad assumption. Personal preference on the latter point, though it's pretty easy to find open sourced libraries.

<comment><USER5> "... I'm not sure why you assume copying code leads to that code being bloated or unclean ..."

 __DEFECTS __if you cut+paste code from place to place and find a single defect in the block you have to go and find all the other instances you have pasted the code.

 __BLOAT __If you cut+paste code it increases the number of lines of code within the codebase so the LOC increases.

Software development within a startup context is about creating code that is _"reliable, smaller, cleaner & faster"_. Reusing code is good but not at the expense of modularity, bloat and defects. Not using _cut & paste_ as a development practice isn't personal preference, its DEV 101 ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_and_paste_programming>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with over-abstraction is that it makes all specific tasks equally difficult. In order to make the hard easier, it makes the easy harder. And that's assuming that you aren't using some slight boundary condition of the abstraction, in which case even the hard becomes even harder still.

Usually, the first thing you think of (in this case, the way the python is implemented) is usually best. If you need something more specific, a specific, instead of abstract, solution is probably better.

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html>

<comment><USER7> I thought I'd add some nuance to this.

The problem with 'over-abstraction' is not too much abstraction per se, any more than the problem with 'oversimplification' is excess of simplicity, or the problem with 'overgeneralization' is too much generality.

Abstraction, simplicity and generality are, in themselves, desirable properties in a design, since they reduce the bulk of design concepts we have to fit in our heads. You can't have too much of these.

You can, of course, make things worse for yourself by neglecting other design goals while striving for a particular one, or by stalling progress in your project by spending too much time in analysis paralysis.

The decision is not only between less or more abstraction, though. There are 'better' and 'worse' abstractions, as measured by their ability to show what is important for the client and hide the irrelevant. In Joel's examples of leaky abstractions, you can say 'too much' is being hidden. I'd rather say the wrong things are being hidden, or that it's done in the wrong place. You could conceivably hide 'more' irrelevant details while still letting every part of your program see what it needs.

To further complicate matters, the fitness of an abstraction for practical purposes depends on cultural factors. Some powerful abstractions only help if you've made the investment to learn and internalize a certain way of thinking about programming. On top of that, you may need to consider the skills and preferences of your audience.

In the example at hand, if Java needs 100 lines to perform an operation, while Python does away with 3, it's hard to argue that Java is being too abstract, or, indeed, more abstract at all. You can say it overindulges in 'abstractions'. But note that the end result burdens the user with lots of details that are irrelevant to them. That is exactly opposite to what abstraction is all about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I definitely have the impression that many Java developers just love to play around - they program for the sake of programming, not for the sake of getting things done.

That said I am not sure the imaging API is as bad as Paul makes it. My guess is that the jpg-api of Python is more like the "escapeMYSQL"-method in PHP. The Java API is very general, so that you can plug in different codecs and encode the image in whatever way you want (JPG, TIFF, GIF, whatever). Can Python do the same?

On the other hand, only JPG matters for Web development, so the generalised API might not be much of an advantage.

<comment><USER7> The Python Imaging Library can handle all those.

<http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/>

<comment><USER8> I am not sure why this turned into a Java vs Python thing - there are lots of "external" Open Source imaging libraries for Java one could use, too.

<comment><USER7> Well, the original article was quite Java-vs-Python-y to start with.

Anyway, I wasn't arguing; just pointing out the fact in case you were interested. I wasn't even aware that there was any type of jpg support in the standard Python library.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, of course I am interested. I went through the Python tutorial a few years ago, but dismissed the language afterwards (also because I didn't like the API documentation). Now I am wondering if that was a mistake...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anything designed by a committee sucks :(. What do they say "camel's a racehorse designed by a committee"...

Java, unfortunately, is full of these crappy APIs because it went through multiple committees.

</comment><comment><USER8> No need to stick to the API from SUN, btw., it seems that several other imaging toolkits are available. For example

<http://schmidt.devlib.org/jiu/introduction.html>

Don't know about the quality, I just yahoogled it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Last blog post was about file uploading, with emphasis on image files. This one uses image resizing as the example. What is Paul working on?

<comment><USER11> It's probably a new paradigm of enterprise software that enables clients to achieve their full growth potential.

<comment><USER4> You stole my idea! Are you spying on me?

:)</comment></comment></comment>


Does a great UX thwart collaboration? - <AUTHOR> http://thegzak.blogspot.com/2011/05/does-great-ux-thwart-collaboration.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think it's the UX that does that. I think it's the attitudes of the developers.

Some communities are filled with people who are looking to innovate and take every opportunity to do so. Others are filled with people who want to make a buck and are acutely aware of what their time is worth. C# has always felt like the latter to me.

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just the way it is.

Ruby has a massive community filled with people who are constantly innovating. It certainly doesn't get in your way more than C# does, so that's not the difference between them. Rails even has 'convention over configuration', so the fact that someone else will probably re-do your work better later is also not the issue.

<comment><USER3> I just joined the Ruby and Rails communities and one thing I've really enjoyed is looking around GitHub at all of the various projects. Often times I can find something to fit my needs right off the bat and every one of the projects provides a great resource for learning.

My experience in .NET has been that, while there are communities of developers providing how-tos, tutorials and code samples, the community as a whole is more closed off. I can often find plugin solutions to problems but, in general, it feels like I'd better have my wallet ready.

The major difference, I think, is that with .NET you are buying into an entire ecosystem and a pretty expensive one at that. This reduces the impact of the lone developer who is far more willing to share his code.

I know you can get into .NET for free/cheap but a lot of the allure is the toolset.</comment></comment>


Truth or consequences - <AUTHOR> https://newcriterion.com/issues/2019/12/truth-or-consequences <comment><AUTHOR> This made me laugh: "The San Francisco poet would sound, if anything, a little smarter than the Canadian, had he not messed up basic hydrology."</comment>


His spectrum "disorder" is a strength. Trillion Dollar "Bond King" interview - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34m0sXqfDxU <comment><AUTHOR> Posting because I think its about time the diversity discussion also includes the negative labels which exclude people with different mental strengths (ADHD, Aspergers to name a few). Our differences start at a genetic level, gender, race, physical abilities and mental strengths. Reducing them each to a label which can be portrayed as a binary good/bad misses the huge opportunity of embracing the differences. If we empower each other to accentuate and enhance our uniqueness instead of repressing it for conformity, then identify how it can be best applied for maximum positive impact we will have a greater chance to succeed as individuals, teams, nations and as a species.</comment>