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I wish everyone were forced to program everything on a machine with the resources of a Pentium I-class processor and say 64MB RAM. Learn to conserve your resou

I wish everyone were forced to program everything on a machine with the resources of a Pentium I-class processor and say 64MB RAM. Learn to conserve your resources, learn to eschew that which is not needed, and for crying out loud learn to not write bloated stuff. Even today, most programs I use on Windows 7 were written back in the days of Windows 95/98 and they still work faster than any current modern implementation you can find, and they're smaller.

suprfnk 10y ago
And then we would only have a fraction of the current tools and innovations, because we would all waste an enormous amount of time doing tedious memory and resource management. While modern tools and frameworks may sometimes feel bloated, they allow us to develop and iterate fast. I know I would've finished less projects if I had to be programming with performance and size in mind. For a lot of projects it just doesn't matter that much. It's more important that the job gets done.
- lightedman 10y ago
  "While modern tools and frameworks may sometimes feel bloated, they allow us to develop and iterate fast" And insecurely, at the same time. The majority of vulnerabilities today come from shoddy programming practices taught by the newest languages and frameworks.
rumcajz 10y ago
Every programmer should be given ZX81 with 1kB of memory to start with.
- lightedman 10y ago
  And after that, the maximum hardware they should be allowed is what I mentioned. Unless you're crunching massive data sets, you don't need 64-bit (and most programs don't, excepting games and of course databases!)
diamondo25 10y ago
Just tell them to do microchip programming, like on an Arduino. Though, the idea of 'it works faster' in comparision of todays software is not really valid, as the expectations and requirements of software have gone up since 2000. Of course Firefox 2.x was fast and not memory hungry! It didnt have to: - support x64 - support new web tech like WebGL, WebRTC, Crypto API, all CSS options, the latest JavaScript specs - update rendering engine for CSS3 - support retina/hiDPI - handle webpages that are big in size + have loads of javascript libraries + multiple advertisement parties - update to a modern UI - implement new cryptos for HTTPS - ship with lots of rejected certificates - still support old systems - do all this in a secure way

suprfnk 10y ago

And then we would only have a fraction of the current tools and innovations, because we would all waste an enormous amount of time doing tedious memory and resource management. While modern tools and frameworks may sometimes feel bloated, they allow us to develop and iterate fast. I know I would've finished less projects if I had to be programming with performance and size in mind. For a lot of projects it just doesn't matter that much. It's more important that the job gets done.

lightedman 10y ago
"While modern tools and frameworks may sometimes feel bloated, they allow us to develop and iterate fast" And insecurely, at the same time. The majority of vulnerabilities today come from shoddy programming practices taught by the newest languages and frameworks.

rumcajz 10y ago

Every programmer should be given ZX81 with 1kB of memory to start with.

lightedman 10y ago
And after that, the maximum hardware they should be allowed is what I mentioned. Unless you're crunching massive data sets, you don't need 64-bit (and most programs don't, excepting games and of course databases!)

diamondo25 10y ago

Just tell them to do microchip programming, like on an Arduino. Though, the idea of 'it works faster' in comparision of todays software is not really valid, as the expectations and requirements of software have gone up since 2000. Of course Firefox 2.x was fast and not memory hungry! It didnt have to: - support x64 - support new web tech like WebGL, WebRTC, Crypto API, all CSS options, the latest JavaScript specs - update rendering engine for CSS3 - support retina/hiDPI - handle webpages that are big in size + have loads of javascript libraries + multiple advertisement parties - update to a modern UI - implement new cryptos for HTTPS - ship with lots of rejected certificates - still support old systems - do all this in a secure way