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I'm a python and clojure dev, and part of the reason for going in search of tiny apps with source code was to see how they managed it. I know I'm part of the pr

by lsh 9y ago

I'm a python and clojure dev, and part of the reason for going in search of tiny apps with source code was to see how they managed it. I know I'm part of the problem too, I like working at a very high level, but I, too, am getting old and grumpy and detest how 16GB ram isn't enough these days. I was actually, partly, looking for a community who built or curated lists of apps with artificial constraints, for example: app must not use more than N MB of ram, must be open source, etc. there is the demo scene, but I want to build practical apps, and there is suckless, but I found their community and philosophy a bit ... hardcore and unaccommodating.

voltagex_ 9y ago
I'd definitely like to talk about this more - I don't have time for any more side projects but it's an interesting idea. "app must not use more than N MB of RAM" is a tricky one - how would you measure usage in all cases?
- roryisok 9y ago
  I think its less about a hard limit and more about comparing to other apps out there that do the same thing. Music players for instance. 1by1 < foobar < VLC < Songbird / Spotify
  - lsh 9y ago
    absolutely. I see a lot of css and js frameworks marketing themselves on how very small they are, both before and after minimization. I guess the first step is to accurately measure what is important.
- lsh 9y ago
  it's a good point and something I'm still investigating. with the jvm you can set the maximum memory available to the instance. I once did all the fundamental C and C++ type stuff, writing a memory manager and my own implementations of certain datastructures and algorithms, it doesn't seem unreasonable to write something that would enforce program limits in a transparent way.
dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
This is a wonderful trend. I've been griping about bloated apps for ages. There's a huge accessibility issue for people in Latin-America and Africa, where most people's computers still have no more than 2G of ram.

by lsh 9y ago

voltagex_ 9y ago

I'd definitely like to talk about this more - I don't have time for any more side projects but it's an interesting idea. "app must not use more than N MB of RAM" is a tricky one - how would you measure usage in all cases?

roryisok 9y ago
I think its less about a hard limit and more about comparing to other apps out there that do the same thing. Music players for instance. 1by1 < foobar < VLC < Songbird / Spotify
- lsh 9y ago
  absolutely. I see a lot of css and js frameworks marketing themselves on how very small they are, both before and after minimization. I guess the first step is to accurately measure what is important.
lsh 9y ago
it's a good point and something I'm still investigating. with the jvm you can set the maximum memory available to the instance. I once did all the fundamental C and C++ type stuff, writing a memory manager and my own implementations of certain datastructures and algorithms, it doesn't seem unreasonable to write something that would enforce program limits in a transparent way.

dahoramanodoceu 9y ago

This is a wonderful trend. I've been griping about bloated apps for ages. There's a huge accessibility issue for people in Latin-America and Africa, where most people's computers still have no more than 2G of ram.