4 ms·

>If you think that software hasn't advanced much, simply use the software from 10 or 20 years ago, and see if you can stand the experience. I still use Jasc Pa

>If you think that software hasn't advanced much, simply use the software from 10 or 20 years ago, and see if you can stand the experience. I still use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 whenever I can. It's faster to startup and use than any of the versions that came afterwards based on .NET. The built-in effects are a bit outdated, but it still runs most Photoshop compatible plugins. And I still run Windows 2000 in an isolated offline VM for some of my work. Even emulated, it's blistering fast on modern day hardware. The entire OS runs great in less RAM than a Blogger tab (assuming the article's numbers about 500MB - 750MB RAM are correct). There is some excellent and efficient new software being made (Sublime Text and Alfred spring to mind), but please, don't give me another Electron-based 'desktop' app.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
A lot of the memory usage in modern browsers is from aggressive caching - computers today have multiple gigabytes of RAm that would otherwise go unused, so browser vendors keep more assets in memory between pageloads to avoid reloading them from the disk cache or worse: the network. Operating systems themselves take advantage of this abundance of memory by also keeping things in-memory for longer - I remember my beefy 2GB/RAM computer from 10 years ago still paged processes and data out to disk when I had Photoshop CS and Firefox 2 side-by-side, but now that I have 32GB of RAM - and have done for the past 2+ years, I csnnot recall having experienced any disk-thrashing due to paging since then.
- mysterydip 9y ago
  The problem is the myriad of low end devices for sale that many consumers buy. Check out all the sub-$300 notebooks and you'll be lucky to find 4GB of RAM. So while 32GB is available today, I wouldn't call it the norm.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I do think it's a mistake to look at high memory usage and immediately assume the software causing it is bad. There's basically no downside to using otherwise-inert memory, so plenty of programs will eat whatever memory you have but degrade nicely when you're out. Hell, several IDEs seem to cache their tab contents just because they can, and that's only a text file on disk. If my memory usage never drops below 70% of available, I have no real complaints. Of course, there is the question of why that much memory usage is even possible. I don't blame Chrome for eagerly caching webpages - it's delightful when I'm on shaky internet and pages don't reload every time I change tabs. But I do object to whoever decided a Blogger tab should have 750 MB worth of crap to cache in the first place. I increasingly feel like many webpages are actively hostile to their users; in service to click rates and advertisers they eat bandwidth, squander memory, and actively oppose security measures like adblocking and SSL enforcement. That, at least, seems like a step backwards.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  And the probability that you can successfully read a web page out of local cache (whether memory or disk) when the internet connection is down is far less than in the '90s. And this in the brave new mobile-first world.
Can_Not 9y ago
Can you clarify which "alfred" software you are referring to?
- collinvandyck76 9y ago
  https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
  - SyneRyder 9y ago
    Yup! That's the one. The entire Alfred application is just 6.4MB uncompressed (the previous version was 9.4MB, so they've made it even smaller!) And it does a lot more than replace Spotlight searches, it supports plugins for various workflows that you can design with a drag & drop component UI layout, there's a calculator and a music controller (iTunes, but with plugins it can control Spotify), text snippet support across the OS, and all in just 22MB of RAM (on my machine). Runs on macOS.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      Wow, that's actually remarkable. I've already been really impressed by Spotlight - where Windows search is slow, unreliable, and constantly shows me ads, Spotlight is fast and almost never misses. But some actual control over what I'm getting from it looks fantastic.
- kruhft 9y ago
  Alfred is a replacement for Spotlight (the macOS run dialog) with a bunch more features.
bberrry 9y ago
> >If you think that software hasn't advanced much, simply use the software from 10 or 20 years ago, and see if you can stand the experience. > I still use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 whenever I can. It's faster to startup and use than any of the versions that came afterwards based on .NET. The built-in effects are a bit outdated, but it still runs most Photoshop compatible plugins. > And I still run Windows 2000 in an isolated offline VM for some of my work. Even emulated, it's blistering fast on modern day hardware. The entire OS runs great in less RAM than a Blogger tab (assuming the article's numbers about 500MB - 750MB RAM are correct). > There is some excellent and efficient new software being made (Sublime Text and Alfred spring to mind), but please, don't give me another Electron-based 'desktop' app. Ha, I too keep Paint Shop Pro 7 around for the reasons you mentioned.

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

A lot of the memory usage in modern browsers is from aggressive caching - computers today have multiple gigabytes of RAm that would otherwise go unused, so browser vendors keep more assets in memory between pageloads to avoid reloading them from the disk cache or worse: the network. Operating systems themselves take advantage of this abundance of memory by also keeping things in-memory for longer - I remember my beefy 2GB/RAM computer from 10 years ago still paged processes and data out to disk when I had Photoshop CS and Firefox 2 side-by-side, but now that I have 32GB of RAM - and have done for the past 2+ years, I csnnot recall having experienced any disk-thrashing due to paging since then.

mysterydip 9y ago
The problem is the myriad of low end devices for sale that many consumers buy. Check out all the sub-$300 notebooks and you'll be lucky to find 4GB of RAM. So while 32GB is available today, I wouldn't call it the norm.
Bartweiss 9y ago
I do think it's a mistake to look at high memory usage and immediately assume the software causing it is bad. There's basically no downside to using otherwise-inert memory, so plenty of programs will eat whatever memory you have but degrade nicely when you're out. Hell, several IDEs seem to cache their tab contents just because they can, and that's only a text file on disk. If my memory usage never drops below 70% of available, I have no real complaints. Of course, there is the question of why that much memory usage is even possible. I don't blame Chrome for eagerly caching webpages - it's delightful when I'm on shaky internet and pages don't reload every time I change tabs. But I do object to whoever decided a Blogger tab should have 750 MB worth of crap to cache in the first place. I increasingly feel like many webpages are actively hostile to their users; in service to click rates and advertisers they eat bandwidth, squander memory, and actively oppose security measures like adblocking and SSL enforcement. That, at least, seems like a step backwards.
adrianratnapala 9y ago
And the probability that you can successfully read a web page out of local cache (whether memory or disk) when the internet connection is down is far less than in the '90s. And this in the brave new mobile-first world.

Can_Not 9y ago

Can you clarify which "alfred" software you are referring to?

collinvandyck76 9y ago
https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
- SyneRyder 9y ago
  Yup! That's the one. The entire Alfred application is just 6.4MB uncompressed (the previous version was 9.4MB, so they've made it even smaller!) And it does a lot more than replace Spotlight searches, it supports plugins for various workflows that you can design with a drag & drop component UI layout, there's a calculator and a music controller (iTunes, but with plugins it can control Spotify), text snippet support across the OS, and all in just 22MB of RAM (on my machine). Runs on macOS.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    Wow, that's actually remarkable. I've already been really impressed by Spotlight - where Windows search is slow, unreliable, and constantly shows me ads, Spotlight is fast and almost never misses. But some actual control over what I'm getting from it looks fantastic.
kruhft 9y ago
Alfred is a replacement for Spotlight (the macOS run dialog) with a bunch more features.

bberrry 9y ago

> >If you think that software hasn't advanced much, simply use the software from 10 or 20 years ago, and see if you can stand the experience. > I still use Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 whenever I can. It's faster to startup and use than any of the versions that came afterwards based on .NET. The built-in effects are a bit outdated, but it still runs most Photoshop compatible plugins. > And I still run Windows 2000 in an isolated offline VM for some of my work. Even emulated, it's blistering fast on modern day hardware. The entire OS runs great in less RAM than a Blogger tab (assuming the article's numbers about 500MB - 750MB RAM are correct). > There is some excellent and efficient new software being made (Sublime Text and Alfred spring to mind), but please, don't give me another Electron-based 'desktop' app. Ha, I too keep Paint Shop Pro 7 around for the reasons you mentioned.