Nope, I just try to avoid doing the same computations over and over again.
Cache all the things.
Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#32Frankly, I think efforts like these are misguided. We are collectively rewriting desktop apps to run in the browser, where not only it runs 50x slower than on the desktop, but all data has to be downloaded time and again from servers. The amount of waste here is staggering. And yet, desktop apps have so many issues (installation/breakage/crashes) that web apps are the only way to deliver software that just works. Web…
> desktop apps have so many issues (installation/breakage/crashes Day-to-day I use a Mac. Installation is me dragging an icon to a folder. Sometimes I use Linux or FreeBSD. There installation is a single command. I don’t see the problem. Difficulty/effort level is equal to bookmarking a website. Indeed, with PWAs it’s literally the same thing. The meme of installation being hard needs to die. First lack of it was bor…
> The meme of installation being hard needs to die.
I think that meme is just people trying to come up with rational reasons for the death of native apps where there are none. The reality is that it's more expensive and takes longer for a big businesses to build a different native app for each OS, so they push web apps. It also takes longer for smaller devs to build multiple native apps, so they push web apps.
That's what it comes down to. If you're building an app like Discord, you can write native clients for macOS, Linux, Windows, iOS, and Android, OR you can write a single React app, throw in a bit of React Native and a few OS-specific tweaks, and you've got all 5 platforms covered.
There's no big conspiracy. Desktop apps aren't worse. It's just business.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#33I can't help but feel that the performance of software with regard to its impact on the climate is a long way down the list behind far more effective but also polarising ideas such as abstaining from the consumption of animal products, limiting the number of children one has, etc. I ran the websitecarbon.com calculator against my org's public website. For 10k/y visits, about 42kg of CO2 is emitted. Dubious how that's…
We are already below replacement TFR in most countries in the West.
"Limiting children" in that case is "human race should die because the climate" and like, no.
Please stop repackaging anti human doomerism as climate action.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#34no. and I don't care at all as long as the highest per capita of carbon producing countries keep pushing other parties to lower their carbon footprint while keeping their wasteful lifestyle.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#35I can't help but feel that the performance of software with regard to its impact on the climate is a long way down the list behind far more effective but also polarising ideas such as abstaining from the consumption of animal products, limiting the number of children one has, etc. I ran the websitecarbon.com calculator against my org's public website. For 10k/y visits, about 42kg of CO2 is emitted. Dubious how that's…
We are already below replacement TFR in most countries in the West. "Limiting children" in that case is "human race should die because the climate" and like, no. Please stop repackaging anti human doomerism as climate action.
Did I say limit children forever? To the point where the human race dies out? Doesn't seem like I did.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#36Frankly, I think efforts like these are misguided. We are collectively rewriting desktop apps to run in the browser, where not only it runs 50x slower than on the desktop, but all data has to be downloaded time and again from servers. The amount of waste here is staggering. And yet, desktop apps have so many issues (installation/breakage/crashes) that web apps are the only way to deliver software that just works. Web…
> desktop apps have so many issues (installation/breakage/crashes Day-to-day I use a Mac. Installation is me dragging an icon to a folder. Sometimes I use Linux or FreeBSD. There installation is a single command. I don’t see the problem. Difficulty/effort level is equal to bookmarking a website. Indeed, with PWAs it’s literally the same thing. The meme of installation being hard needs to die. First lack of it was bor…
The only desktop apps that match OP’s description that I’ve used are old giant “ball of mud” codebases like Adobe and Autodesk stuff, but thankfully my need to use those specially has been low in recent years thanks to more lightweight and well-behaved alternatives like Affinity Photo and Pixelmator.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#37This seems like a good way to shift the blame for climate change to individual people who are powerless to do anything to stop it.
Individual people are the only ones with the power to stop climate change. They’ve just chosen not to exercise that power.
To say that individual action is powerless to stop climate change is the same thing as saying that climate change will never be stopped. Which is true but nobody wants to hear it.
It’s much more fun to say that I am powerless to stop climate change so somebody else with more power than me must stop it! You can follow this chain all the way up to the most powerful person in the world.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are already below replacement TFR in most countries in the West. "Limiting children" in that case is "human race should die because the climate" and like, no. Please stop repackaging anti human doomerism as climate action.
Did I say limit children forever? To the point where the human race dies out? Doesn't seem like I did.
It is substantially implied, considering being worried about population growth when the data suggests it is declining.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
What should people do, who are against climate change, because they are AGAINST human extinction?
I guess we all agree that continuing as is is clearly unsustainable. The one and only alternative to full human extinction is radically scaling down humanity, primarily quantitatively. We would still need some amount of people, ideally geographically distributed to stay resilient against god knows what else will come in the future. I am not well versed at all in the multiple disciplines one needs to talk about this i…
>The only possible thing is becomming true eco terrorists and genociding 99% of the world population somehow.
Ideological capture.
You have been convinced to act against your own self interest.
Re: Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?
#40I can't help but feel that the performance of software with regard to its impact on the climate is a long way down the list behind far more effective but also polarising ideas such as abstaining from the consumption of animal products, limiting the number of children one has, etc. I ran the websitecarbon.com calculator against my org's public website. For 10k/y visits, about 42kg of CO2 is emitted. Dubious how that's…
We are already below replacement TFR in most countries in the West. "Limiting children" in that case is "human race should die because the climate" and like, no. Please stop repackaging anti human doomerism as climate action.
I’m sympathetic to what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s worth arguing with antinatalists. Antinatalism is a self-solving problem.