My cats are my family, so they have priority over most humans. This would only be a tough situation if it were between my cats and my best friend because I consider her to be family too. But, in that case, I would say screw the “you can only save one” mentality, I’d become like a mom who can lift a car off her baby, and somehow save them all.
As a developer, I find it pretty frustrating having to deal with constant hardware updates. By the time you get something released that takes advantage of the hardware you have, you’re already at least a generation or two behind.