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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

#221

Post by graemep »

davidw wrote: post #170
caseyy wrote: post #91

There is an argument to be made that the market buys bug-filled, inefficient software about as well as it buys pristine software. And one of them is the cheapest software you could make. It's similar to the "Market for Lemons" story. In short, the market sells as if all goods were high-quality but underhandedly reduces the quality to reduce marginal costs. The buyer cannot differentiate between high and low-quality g…

I don't think it's necessarily a market for lemons. That involves information asymmetry. Sometimes that happens with buggy software, but I think in general, people just want to pay less and don't mind a few bugs in the process. Compare and contrast what you'd have to charge to do a very thorough process with multiple engineers checking every line of code and many hours of rigorous QA. I once did some software for a s…

I do think there is an information problem in many cases.

It is easy to get information of features. It is hard to get information on reliability or security.

The result is worsened because vendors compete on features, therefore they all make the same trade off of more features for lower quality.

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

#222

Post by reidrac »

ManlyBread wrote: post #212

I have been thinking about this a lot ever since I played a game called "Balatro". In this game nothing extraordinary happens in terms of computing - some computations get done, some images are shuffled around on the screen, the effects are sparse. The hardware requirements aren't much by modern standards, but still, this game could be ported 1:1 to a machine with Pentium II with a 3dfx graphics card. And yet it dema…

It is made in lua using love2d. That helped the developers and comes with a cost in minimal requirements (even if they aren't much for a game released in 2024).

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

#223

Post by OhNoNotAgain_99 »

bluGill wrote: post #138
armchairhacker wrote: post #108

Is there or could we make an iPhone-like that runs 100x slower than conventional phones but uses much less energy, so it powers itself on solar? It would be good for the environment and useful in survival situations. Or could we make a phone that runs 100x slower but is much cheaper? If it also runs on solar it would be useful in third-world countries. Processors are more than fast enough for most tasks nowadays; mor…

> Or could we make a phone that runs 100x slower but is much cheaper? I Probably not - a large part of the cost is equipment and R&D. It doesn't cost much more to build the most complex CPU vs a 6502 - there is only a tiny bit more silicon and chemicals. What is costly is the R&D behind the chip, and the R&D behind the machines that make the chips. If intel fired all their R&D engineers who were not focused on reduci…

[dead]

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

#224

Post by xg15 »

alkonaut wrote: post #181

"The world" runs on _features_ not elegant, fast, or bug free software. To the end user, there is no difference between a lack of a feature, and a bug. Nor is there any meaningful difference between software taking 5 minutes to complete something because of poor performance, compared to the feature not being there and the user having to spend 5 minutes completing the same task manually. It's "slow". If you keep maxim…

Almost all of my nontechnical friends and family members have at some point complained about bloated and overly complicated software that they are required to use.

Also remember that Microsoft at this point has to drag their users kicking and screaming into using the next Windows version. If users were let to decide for themselves, many would have never upgraded past Windows XP. All that despite all the pretty new features in the later versions.

I'm fully with you that businesses and investors want "features" for their own sake, but definitely not users.

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

#225

Post by bee_rider »

alkonaut wrote: post #181

"The world" runs on _features_ not elegant, fast, or bug free software. To the end user, there is no difference between a lack of a feature, and a bug. Nor is there any meaningful difference between software taking 5 minutes to complete something because of poor performance, compared to the feature not being there and the user having to spend 5 minutes completing the same task manually. It's "slow". If you keep maxim…

Agree WRT the tradeoff between features and elegance.

Although, I do wonder if there’s an additional tradeoff here. Existing users, can apparently do what they need to do with the software, because they are already doing it. Adding a new feature might… allow them to get rid of some other software, or do something new (but, that something new must not be so earth shattering, because they didn’t seek out other software to do it, and they were getting by without it). Therefore, I speculate that existing users, if they really were introspective, would ask for those performance improvements first. And maybe a couple little enhancements.

Potential new users on the other hand, either haven’t heard of your software yet, or they need it to do something else before they find it useful. They are the ones that reasonably should be looking for new features.

So, in “features vs performance” decision is also a signal about where the developers’ priorities lay: adding new users or keeping old ones happy. So, it is basically unsurprising that:

* techies tend to prefer the latter—we’ve played this game before, and know we want to be the priority for the bulk of the time using the thing, not just while we’re being acquired.

* buggy slow featureful software dominates the field—this is produced by companies that are prioritizing growth first.

* history is littered with beautiful, elegant software that users miss dearly, but which didn’t catch on broadly enough to sustain the company.

However, the tradeoff is real in both directions; most people spend most of their time as users instead of potential users. I think this is probably a big force behind the general perception that software and computers are incredibly shit nowadays.

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

#227

Post by econ »

genghisjahn wrote: post #130
caseyy wrote: post #91

There is an argument to be made that the market buys bug-filled, inefficient software about as well as it buys pristine software. And one of them is the cheapest software you could make. It's similar to the "Market for Lemons" story. In short, the market sells as if all goods were high-quality but underhandedly reduces the quality to reduce marginal costs. The buyer cannot differentiate between high and low-quality g…

I have worked for large corporations that have foisted awful HR, expense reporting, time tracking and insurance "portals" that were so awful I had to wonder if anyone writing the checks had ever seen the product. I brought up the point several times that if my team tried to tell a customer that we had their project all done but it was full of as many bugs and UI nightmares as these back office platforms, I would be c…

If they think it is unimportant talk as if it is. It could be more polished. Do we want to impress them or just satisfy their needs?

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

#228

Post by asciimov »

Gigachad wrote: post #60
_aavaa_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we've squandered that 1000x not on bounds checking but on countless layers of abstractions and inefficiency.

Am I taking crazy pills or are programs not nearly as slow as HN comments make them out to be? Almost everything loads instantly on my 2021 MacBook and 2020 iPhone. Every program is incredibly responsive. 5 year old mobile CPUs load modern SPA web apps with no problems. The only thing I can think of that’s slow is Autodesk Fusion starting up. Not really sure how they made that so bad but everything else seems super s…

One example is Office. Microsoft is going back to preloading office during Windows Boot so that you don't notice it loading. With the average system spec 25 years ago it made sense to preload office. But today, what is Office doing that it needs to offload its startup to running at boot?

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

#229

Post by azemetre »

reidrac wrote: post #213
caseyy wrote: post #91

There is an argument to be made that the market buys bug-filled, inefficient software about as well as it buys pristine software. And one of them is the cheapest software you could make. It's similar to the "Market for Lemons" story. In short, the market sells as if all goods were high-quality but underhandedly reduces the quality to reduce marginal costs. The buyer cannot differentiate between high and low-quality g…

The user tolerance has changed as well because the web 2.0 "perpetual beta" and SaaS replacing other distribution models. Also Microsoft has educated now several generations to accept that software fails and crashes. Because "all software is the same", customers may not appreciate good software when they're used to live with bad software.

Is this really tolerance and not just monopolistic companies abusing their market position? I mean workers can't even choose what software they're allowed to use, those choices are made by the executive/management class.
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