> it's easy to forget that there are billions of people for whom $45 is a massive investment, and that SSD isn't so conveniently available even if they have the money.

So those people can use whatever hardware they have available to them and not buy the SSD. The parent specifically said it was hard to fit on an SSD, so I assumed they could buy one based on that

> I know I got into programming on a mix of graphing calculators and thrown out PCs, and I also distinctly remember having to work around the download sizes of tooling because I was using really crappy internet.

Graphing calculators, and raspberry PIs (and other various low power devices) are still widely available for people to learn and experiment with. Internet speeds are still a problem in many places but ay some point the software has to be delivered to you, and as I mentioned previously the actually install sizes are not 60GB, and the downloads are significantly smaller (a windows 10 iso fits on a 4GB usb)

> without 60GBs of downloading and storage...

Firstly, it's not 60GB - see my previous post about how much space it actually takes up. It's closer to 30GB. Secondly, if you don't have 30GB of storage of any kind available to you on a computing device,then sure, meanwhile anyone running a machine bought in the last 15 years will have that space available to them.

The forest for the trees wouldn't begin to cover half these responses.

Let me say it again, 60, 30, even 10GBs, is a lot when there's tooling from the same company, that still make similarly functional binaries, that took 342 MB.

You don't need to keep obsessing over "how dare this person with limited resources use an SSD!", like I said you run into similar issues with just downloading the stuff.

Again, forest for the trees.

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Instead maybe you can sit back and just ask "why the bloat over time"?

And the reality is likely: "because no one optimized for it". Because for them lots of fast storage and internet speed are no problem

That line of reasoning maybe allows you to see things from a different prospective and break some assumptions about end users.

Isn't that more useful than browbeating some random for not having 30GB free on their SSD?

I’d say the part where the gp specifically said ssd invalidates your point __in this particular situtation__ because a person worried about their budget wouldn’t splurge on an ssd. I also, after a cursory search, have found that the cheapest hard drives are around $25 USD. While $20 isn’t nothing, it also isn’t budget-breaking.

... what? You think someone stretching their money for an SSD somehow indicates that they're not worried about their budget?

Here's a hint: if they had the budget and availability they'd just get a bigger SSD and not write that comment.

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Obviously, due to some aspect of their circumstance, be it availability, cost, download speeds, etc. the size of the toolkit is problematic.

I mean there's no intrinsic size for a development toolkit, but I don't know anyone who'd say 60GBs of data is a small development toolkit when as others have pointed out, there are older versions of the same Windows toolchains that still complete the same function and manage to take a fraction of the space...

What I’m saying is the delta between a very cheap hdd and an ssd is 20 bucks.

This whole assuming everyone is destitute is getting rather tiring.

It's strange that I'm repeatedly explaining you don't even have to be destitute for it to be a problem, but your mind can only latch onto "at the store I have access to with almost everything one could ever want in stock, the price delta is 'only' $20"

But yeah, seriously woe is you having to momentarily imagine some people are poor or have trouble getting access to tech.

I'm from Ghana so I guess it's not as onerous to imagine people don't live the exact same life I do in the US.