To be honest, unless you are compiling a giant C++ app or perhaps 3d rendering, developers put very little load on a machine.  Consider that we typically write text files and push them remotely for execution.  A 486 was sufficient for that.<p>A few years ago getting enough memory together to run a VM or two might be the largest issue&#x2F;load.  But now memory is cheap and cloud&#x2F;containers are popular.  Containers have breathed new life into my 5 year old machine.