Resharper - convince management

Question

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Business Case for Resharper

Hi Guys!

I've just recently graduated and I'm working for my first company. During college, one of my professors had every computer loaded with Resharper and I loved it! I bought myself a personal license for it and have been using it ever since.

But at my new job, only a select few (senior developers mostly) are using Resharper. When I asked my supervisor to buy a license for myself, I was shot down because "it won't improve the productivity of level 1 programmers".

I've tried showing them that Resharper is only a fraction of a programmer's salary and it'll make my life as a programmer easier. But unfortunately, my words fell on deaf ears. Is there any case or argument that I can bring to my supervisor to show them that it will increase my productivity?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you want to use resharper, why not just buy a license for yourself? Will they let you use it if you buy your own (non-personal) license? Perhaps it could be a deductable business cost?

Otherwise, I'd suggest trying to get support from those in the company who already use it.

Perhaps you could also explain your prior experience in using it previously, or give them a demonstration of how it speeds up your ability to implement code? Let them see for themselves, since they have labelled it as "no benefit to a level 1 programmer" - prove them wrong!

Answer 2

They probably doubt that you will make any worth while use of it, and they have summed up that the avarage gain from a level 1 programmer is very little. This is obviously a generalisation, so you should prove them wrong.

Make a list of some of the features that you use in resharper demonstrating that you know Resharpers features, and for each estimate how much time you save pr. use.

• Add reference and add import statement (xx seconds)
• Move class to namespace (xx seconds)
• Generate property, method, field etc. (xx seconds) ... ... etc.

And then make a wild guess how many times you do that a day, and add it conservatively up to minutes a day.

Then figure out how much this saved time equals in cash a month, and counter that with the cost of Resharper. I bet it will be painfully obvious, that it would be a bad idea not to give you a Resharper license.

You can spice it up with code qualitiy increases from the statical code analysis.

If they still doubt you, give them a demo of some of the time saving features.

Answer 3

"it won't improve the productivity of level 1 programmers"

Gotta tell you up front, there's not much hope with people who say things that ridiculous. This is tantamount to saying "Visual Studio isn't worth the cost for junior developers, they can use Notepad.

In my experience, anyone who asks for Resharper (or any other productivity tool) is probably going to make good use of it because they know already what it's going to give them.

The people it won't help is people who don't know what it offers and aren't surrounded by people who help each other. I've been using it for years now and I still keep finding new features that save me time. Even if you're not the kind of person to get all the benefits, in a decent sized project, Find Type and Ctrl-Click alone pay for the license.

I guess you could try that argument. Or you could try the long-term approach - the longer someone is given resharper for, the more benefit they get from it, so why wait until you're a senior and waste that learning curve then. Or you could try the argument that being a lowly level 1 developer you're going to need help from seniors and they're going to be less inclined to come to your machine if it is less functional.

But honestly, I don't see any argument that's going to get past someone who says things like that. I'm thinking the only thing going through their mind is: if I don't invest in making my seniors happy, they leave (or worse, go over my head to my boss); if I don't invest in my juniors, they don't. I doubt the productivity argument has ever washed.

I feel for you. Best advice I really have is that this is your first lesson in questions to ask at interviews when you do move on. My guess is you'll be learning a lot of things about how to spot companies you don't want to work for.

Incidentally, that was part of the argument I made when asking for licenses for my team (which wasn't a tough fight - one email): if resharper does nothing else, it attracts good developers to your company.

Answer 4

If you already have a personal license, I don't think anything prevents you from using it also at work, provided that your company allows you installing it... http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/buy/license-matrix.jsp

Answer 5

Your supervisor is an idiot.

Do the maths: Work out how much it costs your company to run you per minute (your salary, plus all the overheads like your computer equipment and software, electricity, accomodation. You can probably roughly double your salary). You'll probably find that saving around 1-2 minutes per day will pay back the cost of Resharper to your company in a year. So if you can convince your manager that you will save 2 minutes or 5 minutes or 10 minutes a day, you can show him that he'll be saving money in only a few months.

Remind him that with this sort of tool you are likely to make fewer mistakes - especially as you are inexperienced. How much does it cost to find and fix each bug that could have been avoided with Resharper? $25? $50? And of course, using Resharper will help inexperienced programmers to learn how to code better. So it's a training tool too. In these senses, it's actually of more use to trainees than it is to experienced programmers.

If your company considers Resharper worth getting for anybody, then the only reason not to get it for everyone is if you have such a tight budget that you can't afford to buy it now even though you know it will save you lots of money in the medium term.