4 ms·

The same criticism, that 'new software is just slower but doesn't offer much new', has always been made. Browsers in 2016 do vastly more than they did in 2006,

The same criticism, that 'new software is just slower but doesn't offer much new', has always been made. Browsers in 2016 do vastly more than they did in 2006, websites are richer and are much closer to apps than static pages. The demand that "I want my browser to be exactly the same speed as it used to be, but also support all these new features" doesn't seem like a reasonable engineering ask. You optimize for the hardware that people will run, not the hardware of 10 years ago, and you also optimize for your slowest new use cases, not the old use cases which will be fast enough even without much optimization. The argument also doesn't make logical sense. Ten years ago, there was someone saying software 'largely do pretty much the same things' compared to 1996, and ten years before that I'm sure someone was comparing 1996 software to 1986 and saying something similar. But software today looks nothing like in 1986.

jff 10y ago
I'd rather it stayed the exact same speed it used to be, even if that meant only providing the same features as I had in 2006. The web was pretty good in 2006!
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  That'll probably happen not long after hardware stops improving.
Gracana 10y ago
> The demand that "I want my browser to be exactly the same speed as it used to be, but also support all these new features" Wait wait wait, hold up. I don't want my browsers to support those features. I just want to not need them in order to read a goddamn news article or access a web store. The problem isn't that these technologies are available, it's that they're unavoidable.
marssaxman 10y ago
I don't see richer, more app-like web sites as a clear improvement. They often leave me feeling frustrated, like the designer's ego is more important than actual utility. Would you please, I sometimes want to say, just stop zooming around and show me the text already?
notalaser 10y ago
> The demand that "I want my browser to be exactly the same speed as it used to be, but also support all these new features" doesn't seem like a reasonable engineering ask. Certainly. What does sound like a reasonable engineering request is "I want my browser to be roughly the same speed as it used to be when using these same features that it used to have". Some speed penalty is obviously to be tolerated because of the larger infrastructure (I was about to say boilerplate, but let's keep it civil, there's a legitimate need for it) required to service the extra features, but I think I'm being reasonably lenient even here, considering that this larger infrastructure runs on vastly, vastly superior hardware.

jff 10y ago

I'd rather it stayed the exact same speed it used to be, even if that meant only providing the same features as I had in 2006. The web was pretty good in 2006!

smallnamespace 10y ago
That'll probably happen not long after hardware stops improving.

Gracana 10y ago

> The demand that "I want my browser to be exactly the same speed as it used to be, but also support all these new features" Wait wait wait, hold up. I don't want my browsers to support those features. I just want to not need them in order to read a goddamn news article or access a web store. The problem isn't that these technologies are available, it's that they're unavoidable.

marssaxman 10y ago

I don't see richer, more app-like web sites as a clear improvement. They often leave me feeling frustrated, like the designer's ego is more important than actual utility. Would you please, I sometimes want to say, just stop zooming around and show me the text already?

notalaser 10y ago

> The demand that "I want my browser to be exactly the same speed as it used to be, but also support all these new features" doesn't seem like a reasonable engineering ask. Certainly. What does sound like a reasonable engineering request is "I want my browser to be roughly the same speed as it used to be when using these same features that it used to have". Some speed penalty is obviously to be tolerated because of the larger infrastructure (I was about to say boilerplate, but let's keep it civil, there's a legitimate need for it) required to service the extra features, but I think I'm being reasonably lenient even here, considering that this larger infrastructure runs on vastly, vastly superior hardware.