On 1/26/08, Stefan Monnier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> * Say "computers are cheap but programmers are expensive" whenever > >> explaining a correctness or productivity feature. > > This is true only if talking to people in high-income nations. > > Is it? Maybe you're right. >
Yes -- consider the OLPC project (and its competitors). In some developing nations, $200 for a laptop is still a *lot* to pay (the laptop I'm typing this on cost $1400, purchased on a government grant, and that purchase was treated as nothing.) Labor is a lot cheaper in those places. And there's not much in the way of big government funding (whether for universities or companies) to pay for any of it. > But historically, computers have been available at all kinds of price > ranges, so people chose the price point that fit them. So, for the last > 15 years or so already computers have been chosen (in the wealthy > countries) to be cheaper than programmers. > > Is there any reason to think that the same forces aren't at play in > lower-income nations? After all, cheap (typically second hand) > computers are easy to come by. Not with the same amount of computing power that computers that run modern application tend to have; a lot of places don't even have reliable *electricity* (so in that case, lots of people and limited machines could be *good*, if the machines aren't working all the time), etc. I don't really know enough to give a more complete answer to your question. But my original point is that saying labor is always expensive and hardware is always cheap by comparison is a culturally biased statement, at least right now, on January 26, 2008. Cheers, Tim -- Tim Chevalier * http://cs.pdx.edu/~tjc * Often in error, never in doubt "I eat too much / I laugh too long / I like too much of you when I'm gone." -- Ani DiFranco _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe