When you factor in kids, mortgage, pension, car, travel costs etc, it probably ends up being a bigger dent than you'd think for a lot of programmers.
This just means you have different priorities. Nothing wrong with that but if you really want that laptop then you can afford it.
That's almost a month's salary for a junior/mid-level programmer in this corner of Western Europe.
Western europe realy thats less than than a minimum wage job in the UK
what corner of Western Europe is that?
UK probably.
Developers get paid dick all here.
Same timezone, but better weather :)
Portugal! :)
Assuming the programmer doesn't sell the current laptop that he's currently using.
I suppose that depends on the definition of a financial 'dent' and the market in which the programmer operates.1000$ is over two percents of my yearly net income (situated in northern Europe).
I'm still doing my home development on a $500 PC I bought in 2010.