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Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

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Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#481

Post by KomoD »

StressedDev wrote: post #325
s1k3s wrote: post #6

I want to make native apps but Apple and Microsoft seem to be trying really hard to stop me. I have to buy developer accounts, buy certificates for signing binaries, share 30% of my revenue with them for barely any reason and so on. Not to mention the mess they've introduced in their APIs - especially Microsoft. So of course we choose the much simpler, much cheaper way of the web.

To be blunt, you do not have to create a developer account, sign binaries, or share 30% of your revenue with Microsoft. MS's API are not a mess in my opinion. You do have several options (traditional Win32, .NET, UWP, etc.). These options all work fairly well and are very flexible. As for, Apple, I do not know but I suspect you can make Mac applications without a developer account. You need a developer account for iP…

> This is not a lot of money if you are serious about making an application.

Maybe not for you.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#482

Post by ponector »

noahtallen wrote: post #387
ponector wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is true. My laptop with windows, i7, nvme, 32gb ram now feels the same as my old laptop with i7, SSD and 16gb ram did 7 years ago. Bloat ware everywhere, especially browsers.

This whole thread needs a huge amount of salt and some empirical examples. I think if you compared side-by-side it’d be different. I remember my upgrade from 2019 MacBook to M1, when every single task felt about 50% faster. Or from swapping a window laptop’s HDD with an SSD. (Absolutely massive performance improvement!) Waiting forever for older windows computers to boot, update, index or search files, install softwa…

How advanced is excel now comparing with 2016 version?

New expensive laptop had the same "fast" feeling which fade with new iterations of software. Browser takes insane amount of CPU and memory but isn't faster.

Maybe some intense CPU tasks like zipping folder is faster then ever, but I'm not zipping all day. However Slack is behaving like there is server side remote rendering for each screen...

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#483

Post by piyushag »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #455
eviks wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you'd thinking would reverse again to the common sense baseline when you realize that alternative providers outside of locked systems don't charge 30%

Can you name a provider? I personally use Stripe Tax for my business and while they will calculate the taxes you owe in each municipality it is totally on you to create an account with each country/state's Department of Revenue and fill out a form quarterly to submit your payments. This paperwork is what I believe a marketplace like the App Store or Amazon do for you under their own entity that you have to do yoursel…

You could consider using Galvix, which will connect with your billing system (including Stripe), fetch all the invoices and automatically prepare and file sales tax returns across each of the US states where you are legally required to file, all while providing you full control and visibility over the process. Galvix charges a flat fee of $75 per filed return, which can be considerably more affordable compared to paying a revenue share to other platforms (if tax compliance is the only reason you want to use these platforms).

Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Galvix.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#484

Post by dTal »

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #441
ryandrake wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "actual users" rather than "actual customers?" We should not normalize this because it eats away at free software. It is totally unreasonable to have to pay the operating system's manufacturer in order for person A to simply distribute software to person B, outside of manufacturer's infrastructure. The manufacturer has nothing to do with that distribution, and has no business "warning" the user about this s…

As much as I hate to submit to Apple having to Notarized my software, I have to admit that it’s a useful measure to detect and prevent malware. The end user is protected by Apple’s “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval.

Funny, I've never once in all my days installed malware from a Linux package manager, and this "seal of approval" doesn't cost me or the developer any money at all.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#485

Post by tonymet »

throwaway35777 wrote: post #63
dustymcp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont agree, there is way more help in terms of writing efficient code today than there was back in time, ive seen horrible code from that time which would not have been produced today.

What we don't teach or reward today is the behaviors and engineering process to write high quality code. A surprising number of inexperienced developers do the following: "once I get any working solution I should immediately open a PR" and let the senior engineers tell them what's wrong with it. When the big money leaves this field I hope there will be more pressure for people to adopt good engineering practices. I l…

You’re right and it’s even worse. Much of the content on “engineering” especially on YouTube teaches resource intensive and overly complex practices sold as good programming. Moving more work to runtime. Increasing dependencies. Relying increasingly on blocking RPC. Wasting memory, cpu and storage.

A rejection of performance and compatibility as the core principles of software engineering in favor of “syntactic sugar” and “idiomatic Haskell”

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#486

Post by jongjong »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #473
jongjong wrote: post #203

The answer is yes. Software developers themselves have lost the ability to recognize or value efficient architecture. Software architects have been wiped off the face of the earth and replaced by a combination of script kiddies and scrum masters. Fast forward 10 years, we can see the results. Now we just have to wait to see what happens 10 years from now. Sad for me who wanted to be a software architect. I had to wat…

Non-sarcastic question--how do you define "software architect"? Typically the "architect" title I see thrown around today pertains to gluing together some abominations of "systems", typically cloud services to do web stuff at "scale" Architect today seems == "cloud infrastructure decision maker" and has no bearing on the code written, libs/frameworks/whatever used

Infrastructure could be considered part of architecture but also, it should include other aspects such as how the code is organized on a per-project basis; what frameworks are used, how data should flow through the system, how the different modules are organized to form a functioning product that is resilient to requirement changes.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#487

Post by siva7 »

krageon wrote: post #426
StressedDev wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be blunt, you do not have to create a developer account, sign binaries, or share 30% of your revenue with Microsoft. MS's API are not a mess in my opinion. You do have several options (traditional Win32, .NET, UWP, etc.). These options all work fairly well and are very flexible. As for, Apple, I do not know but I suspect you can make Mac applications without a developer account. You need a developer account for iP…

> This is not a lot of money It is a lot of money when you consider it should be free and serves exactly no purpose.

It serves a purpose: Keeping those out who can't afford it. They just can't say it out loud for obvious reasons.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#488

Post by berkes »

FdbkHb wrote: post #438
dale_glass wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's ask the question differently: what problems were solved? A few more: * Seamless internationalization. If you're a native English speaker you probably never experienced the "fun" of dealing with French and Russian in the same text document. Pre-Unicode supported English + one other language, if that other language wasn't too weird. * Lots of tiny life quality improvements. Eg, not seeing windows repaint costs…

> * Seamless internationalization. If you're a native English speaker you probably never experienced the "fun" of dealing with French and Russian in the same text document. Pre-Unicode supported English + one other language, if that other language wasn't too weird. For some programs, that hasn't changed. I use OneNote heavily to write some sort of personal info database I always look up when I forget something or nee…

I guess that's the worst case. Where we add gigabytes of data, require magnitudes more CPU and memory, but reintroduce problems that were long fixed.

I see that a lot with JavaScript apps. When they replace native, they often fail in details. Where e.g. my native text areas can handle multiple languages when spell checking. But where that diy or spellchuck.js npm version cannot.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#489

Post by currency »

fragmede wrote: post #235
Aaron2222 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to buy developer accounts The Apple Developer Program is only needed for macOS if you want to do sign your binaries or distribute through the Mac App Store. And you only have to pay Microsoft if you want to publish to the Microsoft Store (or use Visual Studio if you're a company that has more than 5 Visual Studio users, more than 250 computers, or more than $1 Million USD in annual revenue). > buy certificat…

If you don't sign your binaries on macOS, the friction for the user to run your app is prohibitive, outside of developer-focused communities.

I answer a support line for users at my institution installing an unsigned application and almost every MacOS support call is because the unsigned app option is only shown in a normally hidden system setting.

Re: Did we lose our way in making efficient software?

#490

Post by GnarfGnarf »

dTal wrote: post #484
GnarfGnarf wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I hate to submit to Apple having to Notarized my software, I have to admit that it’s a useful measure to detect and prevent malware. The end user is protected by Apple’s “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval.

Funny, I've never once in all my days installed malware from a Linux package manager, and this "seal of approval" doesn't cost me or the developer any money at all.

That’s because your computer is a hobby, and mine is a business. My customers use Windows and macOS. They have happily paid for my house, my car and my retirement. :o)
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