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Comment by _dain_ | Hacker News Reader

That's penny wise, pound foolish thinking. A good keyboard and mouse and monitor for your developers (who directly earn you revenue) is not going to break the bank. But the lack of them will reduce productivity and morale, possibly even causing (on the margin) some talented people to leave. RSI and posture problems are no joke!

In other industries you need immense capital investment in equipment for workers to be productive; no serious software company should care about the comparative pittance that office hardware costs.

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I wouldn't expect my employer to provide anything but a decent quality membrane keyboard and a middle of the range logitech mouse by default. Then people who prefer higher end hardware can ask for an upgrade.

I'm typing on a 300 euro keyboard right now but I would consider it a gross waste of money if a company decided to give them to every single employee regardless of need or preference. For instance for most people better chairs and desks would be a vastly better investment, ergonomy-wise.

> membrane keyboard

I can't type on these things to save my life. I need full keys with at least some click in order to type well. When I'm forced to use the keyboard and trackpad on my mac, I am an order of magnitude slower than I am on a cheap external keyboard and mouse.

That's why people should get a budget to pick their own gear.

the amount of times i see critical business users getting slowed down because their laptop is a piece of crap astounds me. The value of the laptop is negligible amortized over it's lifespan so give people good stuff to work with.

The fact that good equipment makes economical sense doesn't refute the argument that good equipment is not a requirement for a junior to succeed.

Your comment reminds me of all the people screeching about their good school district, as if it is somehow capable of covering for them if they choose to be a crap parent.

In both cases the stuff people are fussing over is basically a rounding error compared to the big factors.

Beyond some basic utility, e.g. being able to compile the code in under 5min, the hardware one uses is of negligible impact to their success. A developer will succeed or fail based on their training, mentorship, the nature of the tasks they are given, and all the other more social and interpersonal facets of the business they fine themselves in. A glitchy mouse won't make them or break them.

>A glitchy mouse won't make them or break them.

It can break my god damn wrist joints if I have to use it all day. Speaking from experience.

A glitchy mouse sends the message that a company is not willing to spend $35 on a mid-tier Logitech mouse for the benefit of a resource they are likely spending six figures on (not just in salary but other costs).

If they are making this easily fixable mistake, imagine what else they're doing poorly.

A company isn't going to go all out on everything all the time. That an unending task. At any given time you are going to be putting up with something that's less than ideal in the workplace. Maybe the mouses will suck. Maybe the coffee machine will be broken. Maybe the test server will be a slug. There will be something to complain about all the time if that's what you want to do. All of these can be construed as some "signal" but you're basically just reading noise.

Don Norman has has found that attractive things work better[1]. While it’s not exactly the same, I think giving your employee some freedom to choose the gear they use is probably money well spent.

[1]: https://jnd.org/emotion_design_attractive_things_work_better...

A glitchy mouse or bad keyboard will definitely make or break a developer's productivity. I can only spend so long correctly typos before it starts to negatively impact my mental state. And since so much of my job is building mental models of things, that is a direct impact to my productivity. I experience it every time I'm forced to use the keyboard/trackpad on my mac (because I can't type effectively on membrane keyboards).

I see your point. I believe that if someone is trying to do a job and their equipment is "glitchy" or some other technical issue it effects their morale.

Low morale = lower quality of work.

It's a raindrop in a hurricane though, the best keyboard, mouse, and monitor in the world aren't going to make someone productive in an unproductive environment.

Maybe not, but a bad set of tools can cause real problems. Strain injury, for one thing.

Exactly this. I got RSI from using bad keyboards and mice, and I won’t any more.

But they could make someone unproductive in an otherwise productive environment.

Engineers are expensive, and every minute they spend fighting with equipment rather than being productive is costly.

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