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There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

danluu.com

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Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#461

Post by benj111 »

inigyou wrote: post #455
benj111 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, if I want to edit a text file, I don't need to use eclipse. I can use something that hasn't added loads of features. I don't need to use whatever Adobe product, I can use some paint app. If I want to watch streaming videos, I don't have a choice about how I do that. Fine Firefox is basically a bloated YouTube app. That doesn't change the fact that it is inefficient (from the pov of my CPU) for doing tha…

You aren't using NewPipe or yt-dlp+mpv?

I don't really watch YouTube on my desktop. But the point still stands unless you have replacements for all the other websites.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#462

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

lazide wrote: post #350
alightsoul wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bad, I mean the interstitial. Like it should stay for at least a second to not make it jarring. People believe computers need to think so you can't make things too fast either. Not the interstitial and not the app either, to the point you sometimes have to deliberately slow down the app, add latency to make people trust it because it "gives the computer time to think"

Power users absolutely hate this mindset. It’s resulted in Apple animations taking seconds for something that was done before the animation even started.

The delay in filing email in iOS is incredible. Selecting and moving a single message can take over a second, even with animations disabled. Maddening for what should be an instantaneous action.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#463

Post by khuey »

Gormo wrote: post #460

I was having this exact thought after I overheard a conversation on a train, where two developers were discussing the quality of TypeScript being generated by Claude Code, and how they were getting closer and closer to having all of the architectural requirements, test cases, etc. in place to be able to one-shot correct and functional TypeScript. But if you're going to be relying on the LLM to do all the final-stage…

One obvious reason to have an LLM output a high level language even if you are never going to read the code is because it will require fewer output tokens and therefore be cheaper.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#464

Post by senderista »

khuey wrote: post #463
Gormo wrote: post #460

I was having this exact thought after I overheard a conversation on a train, where two developers were discussing the quality of TypeScript being generated by Claude Code, and how they were getting closer and closer to having all of the architectural requirements, test cases, etc. in place to be able to one-shot correct and functional TypeScript. But if you're going to be relying on the LLM to do all the final-stage…

One obvious reason to have an LLM output a high level language even if you are never going to read the code is because it will require fewer output tokens and therefore be cheaper.

If LLM-generated code continues the human pattern of having roughly the same rate of bugs/LOC regardless of language, then I also expect LLM-generated code in high-level languages to be less buggy.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#465

Post by senderista »

mxuribe wrote: post #435
VCFundedGenYer wrote: post #425

The peak of fast software was definitely Windows XP, Windows 7, and OS X Snow Leopard. I don't see us returning to that glorious era. Recently I was frustrated by Windows 11's seeming inability to open a context menu with acceptable speed - right click an item in the taskbar and there is nearly a 1000ms delay before the menu appears. That is unacceptable. When I need to run old software, I now try to the "minimum via…

As much as i dislike Windows, i agree that the versions of the OS from that era were really fast (except for maybe Vista)!! As far as OS X, I had used OS X back around ~2007 - 2010, but can't recall what versions it was...and it performed fine back then too. I've been on one or another linux distro since around 2003 or maybe 2004, and have been running linux as my primary driver for laptops and desktops since maybe 2…

Yeah, during Win7 we put in a bunch of dedicated perf work, no idea if that sort of thing is funded now.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#466

Post by preg_match »

khuey wrote: post #463
Gormo wrote: post #460

I was having this exact thought after I overheard a conversation on a train, where two developers were discussing the quality of TypeScript being generated by Claude Code, and how they were getting closer and closer to having all of the architectural requirements, test cases, etc. in place to be able to one-shot correct and functional TypeScript. But if you're going to be relying on the LLM to do all the final-stage…

One obvious reason to have an LLM output a high level language even if you are never going to read the code is because it will require fewer output tokens and therefore be cheaper.

Typescript is not meaningfully a higher level language than Java, C#, or even Rust. Typescript exists for exactly two reasons:

1. JS is a privileged language and allows you to tap into web and node

2. Type safety is good

But TS is not a good language overall. It's just much slower than alternatives and much less safe.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#467

Post by inerte »

Gormo wrote: post #460

I was having this exact thought after I overheard a conversation on a train, where two developers were discussing the quality of TypeScript being generated by Claude Code, and how they were getting closer and closer to having all of the architectural requirements, test cases, etc. in place to be able to one-shot correct and functional TypeScript. But if you're going to be relying on the LLM to do all the final-stage…

It depends on what software you’re building. The npm ecosystem is huge, hosting is easy, etc. Sure C can do it but it will take longer.

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#468

Post by stevetron »

If there's no reason for software to be slow anymore, then why, when I click on any item in my Windows 11 computer, does it take 30 secords for something to acknowledge I clicked? With a Ryzen 5 CPU boasting quite a few cores, an Nvidia gpu board, and 64GB of DRAM, why does it take so long?

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#469

Post by embedding-shape »

mccoyb wrote: post #440
embedding-shape wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, say "Build a compiler" will require you to clean up stuff if you leave the agent for days, but not because of the LLM or the quality of the tool, but because you hardly specified anything, so of course it's gonna make assumptions you need to correct. If you instead spend a day writing a proper specification, then ask the agent to spend a week implementing that, you'll need zero tools and skills afterwards to cle…

Bro, what the fuck do you think I’m doing? Do you think I don’t know about spec driven development? What is the most complicated thing you’ve built with LM agents? Have you done it with a single spec? How novel was it? This comment is so laughably “you’re holding it wrong” I can’t respond to you seriously. > If you instead spend a day writing a proper specification, then ask the agent to spend a week implementing tha…

> Bro, what the fuck do you think I’m doing? Do you think I don’t know about spec driven development?

Bro, I don't know you, and have no idea what you do, except for the parts you share in your comment, like talking to a LLM :) If you say "if you ask an agent to write a compiler" and don't expand on that, I'll take your word for it.

I'm glad you got a laugh, and didn't take it so serious :) Not entirely sure why you got so defensive, but it's all good, again I don't know you, sorry if it felt like I called you stupid or something. At least some other people found it helpful I suppose, so in the end it sucks you're unable to get value from a process I've found working for me, hope you'll find something that works out for you in the end, regardless of what it is!

Re: There's no reason for software to be slow anymore

#470

Post by embedding-shape »

n4r9 wrote: post #342
embedding-shape wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, say "Build a compiler" will require you to clean up stuff if you leave the agent for days, but not because of the LLM or the quality of the tool, but because you hardly specified anything, so of course it's gonna make assumptions you need to correct. If you instead spend a day writing a proper specification, then ask the agent to spend a week implementing that, you'll need zero tools and skills afterwards to cle…

You're making assumptions; OP made no mention of how detailed their spec was.

Indeed, you're right, I did do assumptions, based on what I could understand from it, and also based on my own experience using these tools too. May be their specification is very detailed and exactly as they wish it to be, yet the agent creates something completely else, then probably something else than the specification is wrong, and my comment is pointless :)
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