Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Working Environment For a Developer?

New submitter Dorgendubal writes: I work for a company with more than a thousand developers and I'm participating in activities aimed at improving the work experience of developers. Our developers receive an ultrabook that is rather powerful but not really adapted for development (no admin rights, small storage capacity, restrictive security rules, etc.). They also have access to VDIs (more flexibility) but often complain of performance issues during certain hours of the day. Overall, developers want to have maximum autonomy, free choice of their tools (OS, IDE, etc.) and access to internal development environments (PaaS, GIT repositories, continuous delivery tools, etc.) . We recently had a presentation of VMWare on desktop and application virtualization (Workstation & Horizon), which is supposedly the future of the desktops. It sounds interesting on paper but I remain skeptical.

What is the best working environment for a developer, offering flexibility, performance and some level of free choice, without compromising security, compliance, licensing (etc.) requirements? I would like you to share your experiences on BYOD, desktop virtualization, etc. and the level of satisfaction of the developers.

Comments

Re:Whatever they feel like

[PPH]

Then let them quit. OP has over a thousand devels and giving everyone admin access and the ability to select their own tools will turn into a nightmare. There will be a thousand different environments. One person quits, gets sick or goes on vacation and his cow-orkers will have to reverse engineer all of his shit to keep production running. Nobody in a shop that size is that good.

If you want free reign to select your own tools, work for yourself in your basement.

or surreptitiously, as necessary.

You're fired.