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Like, "Seriously, are you taking photos with your phone?"
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Yep, I do. But I don't use my dishwasher to cook dinner either 
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Computers are not only to do development. The question is not specifying anything either.
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
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You will never get a clear answer to what it takes to call something a computer. It is like asking how long is a rubber band.
I guess that most people would say that if all they see are effects that could have been made in this or that way, a programmed CPU being only one alternative, then they don't consider it a computer. Your (previous) car essentially ran in the same manner before it got microprocessors to monitor and control everything. You turn the dial on your radio: Nowadays, the dial sends interrupts to a CPU. In the old days, it would turn an adjustable capacitor to set the frequency, or a potentiometer to set the loudness. The sound coming out of the speakers is very much the same; you see the knob as operating the radio, not as operating a computer.
We had cellular phones long before they had microprocessors; we had the fully automatic, cellular NTM network from 1981. (A manual, non-cellular mobile phone network existed from 1966.) Pushbutton phones became common from around 1980. So even though GSM is a fully 'computerized' phone, a user hardly notices it; it works the same way as the old, non-computerized phone.
You can say similar things about all sorts of equipment with embedded electronics (and that covers about all but safety pins nowadays). Maybe there are some revealing clues, such as the touch panel on my baking oven, telling me that there is a CPU somewhere in there. Yet I am using it the same way as my old, all mechanical baking oven.
On the borderline is various electronic games. A number of games (say, Flipper) was originally mechanical; then you certainly didn't interact with a computer. When you interact the same way with a digital Flipper-clone, I find it hard to say that you are "using a computer" (any more than when you drive your car). Many modern games have been all-digital since birth. Are they computers? I would say no; you interact with them as a game, not as a computer.
But as a game developer, you relate to CPU, GPU, RAM and interrupts from the game console. Then you are certainly a computer user - even when you run the game in a debugger.
If you are aware of the primary components of the computer - the CPU, memory and such - then you are using a computer. If you are just aware of what they do for you, then I do not see it as a computer, but as a car, a game, a baking oven, a cash register, a stereo system ...
Feel free to disagree!
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I totally agree.
I also thought the reply was odd since this is a forum "for those who code".
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The survey doesn't say whether 1=lowest or 1=highest rating.
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Yes, I noticed that and I've assumed 1 lowest, 5 highest
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Guessed so. Hopefully, the others did, too!
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I remember from my childhood a case where a low value was a high rating. For the last 30 years, I cannot think of one such rating case. 'Lower is better' is limited to physical measurements, such as timings and resource consumption.
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Does one splash or economize on this purchase?
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Think it depends a lot on your use. One of my team is a gamer and has a (to me) crazy box. He'll spend more on a GPU than I spend on the whole system 
I try to hit middle ground, figuring Windows version in the best I can. Win11 caught me off guard on a couple of boxes with a lot of life left, but don't meet specs.
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I just replaced a 9 year old laptop with a new one. I can't see much difference in performance. I don't game, so there isn't a need for crazy performance. I've rendered video with the new one and it isn't significantly better.
Hogan
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Been like that for ages I reckon. The OS and programs seem to have an appetite for horsepower that grows almost as fast as said horsepower is made available.
Using WordPerfect or Lotus123 on a 386 in the 90s was in many instances, far more satisfying and responsive than using Office on anything new.
On one hand, I've been excited to see the growth of portable, battery-powered computing as I imagined the strides that would be taken towards efficiency. On the other hand, the number of brain-dead frameworks, languages and approaches to making stuff leaves me silently dying inside.
The weight of the average HTML page is horrifying - Take this page for instance. 186kb transferred up until the point I wrote the number. Each effin keystroke transfers another 1kb. The current number is now 250kb. My shite wasted on their cheap-ass programmers... (Now 282kb) 
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To a point, that is true. But users don't expect to see a Lotus123 screen today. Sure, there are purists who would use it, but not much of a market. Anyone who has been doing this for a long time is "sloppier". Not in terms of bad coding, but life's a lot different than when you worked in a 32k (or less) space.
For web pages, I doubt many people are really paying attention. The CSS frameworks, scripts, and graphics add more weight than the real content does by far. But design a heavy content page for a client and expect to get beat up. Badly.
From my POV, the new boxes are a bit faster. Enough to warrant a new one? Nope, but I don't do game or video intensive stuff.
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Jira is a huge offender. At one point I saw 21MB page to load a ticket. I blame JavaScript development for this
Hogan
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Usually less expensive to add things like storage and RAM. I want to be able to add RAM up to 128 GB (current is 64) and multiple drives (currently have 6, 2 NVME, 3 SSD, and 1 spinny-go-round). Most of my work is done in virtual machines, nobody in their right mind would test my stuff on a real system.
Current backups go to computer running TrueNAS. Powered off when not doing B/R.
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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I plan to improve the core (CPU, RAM, MoBo, PSU) every 5 years, the GPU every 2 or 3 (I game), peripherals (SSD, HDD) as needed. The whole setup should cost about 1000 - 1200 €.
So far the core lasted 6 years and counting, same for the GPU (1050 Ti, I am half blind so I play at 1080 and I have no shame in turning down the graphic setting to eke out some more years of usage). I spent a bit o peripherals since I understimated the SSD size at the beginning.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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den2k88 wrote: I spent a bit on peripherals since I underestimated the SSD size at the beginning.
You can never have too much storage, but not all of it needs to be internal. For development machines, I have between 512GB - 2TB of internal disk space, and a NAS for anything for which I do not require access "on the road".
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I started with a 240 GB SSD and 2TB HDD, I was used to "huge" games taking 35 gigs. We're past 160 gigs... So I added 1 TB of SSD.
4TB of NAS were added because I used to backup stuff on portable hard drives: all three of them died in a week, losing several TB of data. Never again.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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NAS in a RAID configuration allows for recovery of data if a single HDD goes, but is no substitute for proper backups. As you found out, it is possible to be on the unlucky end of the bell curve...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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[...] is no substitute for proper backups.
I agree that backing up an entire system is a very good idea.
Small to Medium Business: Every day.
Large Business (Like Hdepot or Wmart: Every 1 to 5 hours.
Home Computer: Every day.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: NAS in a RAID configuration allows for recovery of data if a single HDD goes, but is no substitute for proper backups
Correct. The copy of data from my PC onto the NAS is the backup for anything of value. RAID just makes managing backups simpler (1 big storage location) and means my backups themselves are less likely to be lost.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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I keep a portable (5TB) hard drive around for items that don't need (or only need to access occasionally) to be on my main machine to save space.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian
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I had 3. All died in the same week when trying to retrieve said items. At least the NAS uses high quality 3.5" disks, has a constant diagnostic and mirroring. I spent quite a bit on that, but the safety and the comfort are worth it - my wife can now watch videos straight from the TV or backup the phone without a computer in the middle.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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When I got my first PCs, around 1990, and ten years ahead, I made a great effort in 'future proofing'. In those days, there were MBs which placed the CPU on a separate daughterboard, so that you could upgrade your CPU to one using another socket; you just bought another daughterboard with that new socked, keeping the rest of the system unchanged.
It doesn't take long to realize that your old system was balanced; the components and pathways between them had the capacity needed. You buy another, much faster component, and it can't be utilized more that to a fraction of its real potential, because the pathways are too narrow, or its co-workers serve as bottlenecks.
Last time I spent a little extra on future proofing, I bought external hard disks for backup/archival, providing both USB 2.1 and FW800 interfaces, so that when the computer world had abandoned USB, I would still have access to my archived files. From a technical point of view, FW800 was a far better standard than USB 2.1 (I still think so!), but the chances of finding a PC with a working FW800 interface has dropped every year since. Thinking that 'The Latest and Greatest' will always win does not always hold true.
So now I buy machines following the newest standards that have been generally accepted, and buy machines that can be expanded, e.g. in RAM or disk capacity. No intention of upgrading, in the sense of throwing out old components for replacing them with new ones. When I need to throw out one component, the others are close to being thrown out too. So that's what I do.
But not being a gamer, my 2014 vintage MB/CPU still holds up. I recently put an M.2-disk in the socket that has been unused until now; I guess that makes it hold up for another few years.
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