modern terminals (was: printf, data presentation)

[Stephen J. Friedl]

In article <9325 at smoke.BRL.MIL>, gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
> How, indeed, is one to reduce the advantages of
> increased flexibility and convenience to a specific dollar value?

In article <4876 at mtgzz.att.com>, avr at mtgzz.att.com (a.v.reed) writes:
> With figures. A programmer costs her employer about 100,000 dollars a
> year in salary, benefits, plant, and cost of supervision. A Wyse 50
> displays 24 lines; a blit (or 5620, 630 etc.) 62 or more. According to
> the measurements of Reisel and Shneiderman (Proceedings of the Second
> International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, August 10-15,
> 1987, in press at North-Holland) the same programmer will get her work
> done 14% faster with a 60 line terminal than with a 22 line terminal.
> So getting a 630 instead of a traditional terminal will save $ 14,000
> per year in programmer time. Payback time is less than 2 months. How's
> that for short-term bottom line?

While a Blit may improve a programmer's productivity 14%, it will
not make her need 14% less benefits, 14% less plant, or 14% less
supervision.  In addition, this 14% probably applies to actually
on-the-tube time, and I suspect that very few programmers will
actually be at their desks all the time: meetings, conferences,
netnews :-), etc. will eat into this.

In addition, many shops -- like us -- are contractors where they
charge out time to customers.  While there is a long-term benefit
in being more productive (happy customers = higher rates), the
short-term payback is not as clear.

Finally, nobody in *our* shop costs us $100k per year by any
measure of cost, and for many smaller operations this will be the
case.

On the other hand, I think that 14% is a little low.  The ref
given only talks about the difference between 24 lines and 60
line terminals, but I would suspect that adding windows to this
equation will make a significant difference on the upside.

Remember, I really do support bitmapped interfaces, and in any
shop with expensive employees the benefits are overwhelming
(assuming the system software with handle it), but one must be
careful not to present an argument that will get shot down.

     Steve

-- 
Stephen J. Friedl        3B2-kind-of-guy            friedl at vsi.com
V-Systems, Inc.        I speak for me only      attmail!vsi!friedl
Santa Ana, CA  USA       +1 714 545 6442    {backbones}!vsi!friedl
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