261–270 of 842 posts
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I’m surprised in your list because it contains 3 apps that I’ve replaced specifically due to performance issues (docker, iterm and notes). I don’t consider myself particularly performance sensitive (at home) either. So it might be true that the world is even _less_ likely to pay for resource efficiency than we think.
What did you replace Docker with?
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Even if end-users had the data to reasonably tie-break on software quality and performance, as I scroll my list of open applications not a single one of them can be swapped out with another just because it were more performant. For example: Docker, iterm2, WhatsApp, Notes.app, Postico, Cursor, Calibre. I'm using all of these for specific reasons, not for reasons so trivial that I can just use the best-performing solu…
Except you’ve already swapped terminal for iterm, and orbstack already exists in part because docker left so much room for improvement, especially on the perf front.
Another example is that I use oh-my-zsh which is adds weirdly long startup time to a shell session, but it lets me use plugins that add things like git status and kubectl context to my prompt instead of fiddling with that myself.
The goal isn't optimized code, it is utility/value prop. The question then is how do we get the best utility/value given the resources we have. This question often leads to people believing optimization is the right path since it would use fewer resources and therefore the value prop would be higher. I believe they are both right and wrong. For me, almost universally, good optimization ends up simplifying things as i…
You're right that the crux of it is that the only thing that matters is pure user value and that it comes in many forms. We're here because development cost and feature set provide the most obvious value.
The world DOES run on older hardware. How new do you think the CPU in your bank ATM or car's ECU is?
Powerplants and planes still run on 80s hardware.
Some of the specific embedded systems (like the sensors that feed back into the main avionics systems) may still be using older CPUs if you squint, but it's more likely a modern version of those older designs.
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The dumbest and most obvious of realizations finally dawned on me after trying to build a software startup that was based on quality differentiation. We were sure that a better product would win people over and lead to viral success. It didn’t. Things grew, but so slowly that we ran out of money after a few years before reaching break even. What I realized is that lower costs, and therefore lower quality, are a compe…
I kind of see this in action when I'm comparing products on Amazon. When comparing two products on Amazon that are substantially the same, the cheaper one will have way more reviews. I guess this implies that it has captured the majority of the market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if end-users had the data to reasonably tie-break on software quality and performance, as I scroll my list of open applications not a single one of them can be swapped out with another just because it were more performant. For example: Docker, iterm2, WhatsApp, Notes.app, Postico, Cursor, Calibre. I'm using all of these for specific reasons, not for reasons so trivial that I can just use the best-performing solu…
I’m surprised in your list because it contains 3 apps that I’ve replaced specifically due to performance issues (docker, iterm and notes). I don’t consider myself particularly performance sensitive (at home) either. So it might be true that the world is even _less_ likely to pay for resource efficiency than we think.
That an alternate tool might perform better is compatible with the claim that performance alone is never the only difference between software.
Podman might be faster than Docker, but since it's a different tool, migrating to it would involve figuring out any number of breakage in my toolchain that doesn't feel worth it to me since performance isn't the only thing that matters.
Very, very little.
If engineers handled the Citicorp center the same way software engineers did, the fix would have been to update the documentation in Confluence to not expose the building to winds and then later on shrug when it collapsed.
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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…
I just clicked on the network icon next to the clock on a Windows 11 laptop. A gray box appeared immediately, about one second later all the buttons for wifi, bluetooth, etc appeared. Windows is full of situations like this, that require no network calls, but still take over one second to render.
I see this all the time with people who have old computers.
“My computer is really fast. I have no need to upgrade”
I press cmd+tab and watch it take 5 seconds to switch to the next window.
That’s a real life interaction I had with my parents in the past month. People just don’t know what they’re missing out on if they aren’t using it daily.