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On Tue, 2004-10-12 at 18:39, Neil Williams wrote:
I am not an economist (although from time to time I read it.) It has been accepted by sufficient people of considerable smartness and whose world-models seem to work that the concept of "opportunity cost" is valid.WRONG. You assume that all activity 24/7 is worthy of income. I write code in my spare time, in my dreams, in the car - i.e. in circumstances where I am ALREADY doing something else which no-one in their right mind would charge for. Writing code does not cost any money BECAUSE IT IS NOT WORK.
Just because something does not cost money that does not mean that it is free (as in beer) to produce. In order to produce that code you've had to make a decision to do that over, say (for a random example), having a bath. Therefore the cost to you of writing that piece of code is not having a bath. You can't disagree with basic economic principles by shouting wrong at people.
The people of 'considerable smartness' are dealing with issues of relevance to companies. I am not a company - I have time off and in that time off I code. I decide how much time off I have (courtesy of being self-employed in my work) and how much of that goes on code.Whatever you do incurs an opportunity costRubbish. Who pays for your sleep? Your dreams? Your time in the shower?
It's not rubbish, as I've said opportunity cost is not necessarily financial but you sacrifice the ability to do something else in that piece of time.
Untrue. You are still treating this as a commodity, it's not, it's speech. Who is paying you for the work on the list?
I am paying for my time writing this email by not drinking a beer.
Who is losing out financially for your time on the list? This is not chargeable time - it's leisure time. It's FUN! I thought there was a working time directive - or have all those hours as a junior doctor jaded your perspective of work and leisure? :-)) I choose to work in pharmacy for the money. I don't have a choice about writing code, like an artiste or musician sometimes the darned stuff just oozes out of my brain and it's more than I can do to keep my fingers moving as fast as my brain. Why should I forget it all and let nobody benefit?
You have a choice not to spend time in front of your computer typing that code into it. You could do something else with that time, the cost to you is the other things you could do in that time. Alex. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.