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"It used to be the case that programs took a really long time to run. CPU’s were expensive, memory was expensive. Running time of a program used to be an import

by nadam 9y ago

"It used to be the case that programs took a really long time to run. CPU’s were expensive, memory was expensive. Running time of a program used to be an important metric." As hardware gets faster we give it new tasks that could not be achieved before. Like rendering high resolution stereoscopic images using physically based shading at 90 FPS on relatively cheap consumer hadware (VR). There are still quite a lot of code that we call 'performance critical'. Most of that code is written in C/C++ (and CUDA and glsl, and hlsl, etc...) today.

carlmr 9y ago
Yeah, also we have a lot of code that a lot of engineers in our company run. Some of it takes hours instead of a few minutes to run, because it's a bunch of slowness combined. Sure you can say the engineer doesn't have to watch. But sometimes you need this result, and can't do much else until it's there. Doing a few loops at a few hours at a time is very time consuming. Being lazy about slowness is bad in the long run, if you or your customers waste inordinate amounts of time, because one of your devs didn't want to think. Sure you should optimize from the bottleneck, look at hot path, measure where optimization makes sense. But using tools that make some stuff 10x faster without much effort is not premature optimization. It's just not being stupid.
ivm 9y ago
It's still expensive on client machines because most of the persons in the world are NOT software engineers with 6-digit salaries. They run cheap computers with HDDs and Windows polluted by a ton of 3rd party crap. They don't know how to fix it and silently suffer. I was cleaning a local vet clinic's devices recently – they were literally switching between two computers to not wait 5 minutes of non-responsiveness because some bloated software was occasionally consuming 100% of CPU.
- mark-r 9y ago
  A lot of businesses these days prefer web apps. It's not hard to understand why - all the hassle of system maintenance falls to the people who host the app and can afford to know their stuff. If your Windows PC is suffering from rot just replace it with a Chromebook.
  - ivm 9y ago
    "Just get money for a new device out of thin air and just replace all your paid or even cracked Windows software with subscription-based alternatives that will not work without Internet. Ah, also just relearn all your workflows." Sorry, but that's how being in a bubble looks like.
    - mark-r 9y ago
      I wasn't suggesting that businesses were anxious to replace things that already work, I'm suggesting that as they acquire new software it's more likely to be web-based. Devices are often replaced on a schedule anyway, especially if they're leased.
      - ivm 9y ago
        I wasn't talking only about businesses in my previous reply. But most businesses on the planet aren't bathing in money either. You are speaking as a citizen of a rich country where devices are relatively cheap and stable Internet is available everywhere.

by nadam 9y ago

carlmr 9y ago

Yeah, also we have a lot of code that a lot of engineers in our company run. Some of it takes hours instead of a few minutes to run, because it's a bunch of slowness combined. Sure you can say the engineer doesn't have to watch. But sometimes you need this result, and can't do much else until it's there. Doing a few loops at a few hours at a time is very time consuming. Being lazy about slowness is bad in the long run, if you or your customers waste inordinate amounts of time, because one of your devs didn't want to think. Sure you should optimize from the bottleneck, look at hot path, measure where optimization makes sense. But using tools that make some stuff 10x faster without much effort is not premature optimization. It's just not being stupid.

ivm 9y ago

It's still expensive on client machines because most of the persons in the world are NOT software engineers with 6-digit salaries. They run cheap computers with HDDs and Windows polluted by a ton of 3rd party crap. They don't know how to fix it and silently suffer. I was cleaning a local vet clinic's devices recently – they were literally switching between two computers to not wait 5 minutes of non-responsiveness because some bloated software was occasionally consuming 100% of CPU.

mark-r 9y ago
A lot of businesses these days prefer web apps. It's not hard to understand why - all the hassle of system maintenance falls to the people who host the app and can afford to know their stuff. If your Windows PC is suffering from rot just replace it with a Chromebook.
- ivm 9y ago
  "Just get money for a new device out of thin air and just replace all your paid or even cracked Windows software with subscription-based alternatives that will not work without Internet. Ah, also just relearn all your workflows." Sorry, but that's how being in a bubble looks like.
  - mark-r 9y ago
    I wasn't suggesting that businesses were anxious to replace things that already work, I'm suggesting that as they acquire new software it's more likely to be web-based. Devices are often replaced on a schedule anyway, especially if they're leased.
    - ivm 9y ago
      I wasn't talking only about businesses in my previous reply. But most businesses on the planet aren't bathing in money either. You are speaking as a citizen of a rich country where devices are relatively cheap and stable Internet is available everywhere.