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The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

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Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#11

Well, yes. It's an economic problem (which is to say, it's a resource allocation problem). Do you have someone spend extra time optimising your software or do you have them produce more functionality. If the latter generates more cash then that's what you'll get them to do. If the former becomes important to your cashflow then you'll get them to do that.

It's the kind of economics that shifts the financial debt to accumulating waste, and technical debt, which is paid for by someone else. It's basically stealing. There are --of course-- many cases in which thorough optimizing doesn't make much sense, but the idea of just adding servers instead of rewriting is a sad state of affairs.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#12
I like to point out that since ~1980, computing power has increased about 1000X.

If dynamic array bounds checking cost 5% (narrator: it is far less than that), and we turned it on everywhere, we could have computers that are just a mere 950X faster.

If you went back in time to 1980 and offered the following choice:

I'll give you a computer that runs 950X faster and doesn't have a huge class of memory safety vulnerabilities, and you can debug your programs orders of magnitude more easily, or you can have a computer that runs 1000X faster and software will be just as buggy, or worse, and debugging will be even more of a nightmare.

People would have their minds blown at 950X. You wouldn't even have to offer 1000X. But guess what we chose...

Personally I think the 1000Xers kinda ruined things for the rest of us.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#14

The world DOES run on older hardware. How new do you think the CPU in your bank ATM or car's ECU is?

Well I know the CPU in my laptop is already over 10 years old and still works good enough for everything I do.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#16
post #12

I like to point out that since ~1980, computing power has increased about 1000X. If dynamic array bounds checking cost 5% (narrator: it is far less than that), and we turned it on everywhere, we could have computers that are just a mere 950X faster. If you went back in time to 1980 and offered the following choice: I'll give you a computer that runs 950X faster and doesn't have a huge class of memory safety vulnerabi…

I don't think it's that deep. We are just stuck with browsers now, for better and worse. Everything else trails.

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#17
post #13

The world DOES run on older hardware. How new do you think the CPU in your bank ATM or car's ECU is?

Related: I wonder what cpu Artemis/Orion is using

IBM PowerPC 750X apparently, which was the CPU the Power Mac G3 used back in the day. Since it's going into space it'll be one of the fancy radiation-hardened versions which probably still costs more than your car though, and they run four of them in lockstep to guard against errors.

https://www.eetimes.com/comparing-tech-used-for-apollo-artem...

Re: The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

#20
post #12

I like to point out that since ~1980, computing power has increased about 1000X. If dynamic array bounds checking cost 5% (narrator: it is far less than that), and we turned it on everywhere, we could have computers that are just a mere 950X faster. If you went back in time to 1980 and offered the following choice: I'll give you a computer that runs 950X faster and doesn't have a huge class of memory safety vulnerabi…

Don't forget the law of large numters. 5% performance hit on one system is one thing, 5% across almost all of the current computing landscape is still a pretty huge value.
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