5 ms·

You have it on the head. The tasks we pick for computing are the ones that can be completed in seconds. There is plenty of interesting computation we could and

by dagss 9y ago

You have it on the head. The tasks we pick for computing are the ones that can be completed in seconds. There is plenty of interesting computation we could and would do if what now requires a year would only require a second.

bo1024 9y ago
I think the opposite direction is actually more telling. Developers tolerate bloat and BS up to the level of seconds. So there is plenty of computation being done that only requires milli or microseconds, but due to development practices now stretches just out into the annoying time frame. (Prime example: the growth of web pages to match increases in processing, RAM, and internet speeds, means that the web is actually slower to use these days.)
- bjterry 9y ago
  When the web was young and most people were on dialup, having access to a T1 meant that everything happened nearly instantaneously. All the sites were optimized for dialup levels of complexity. Now that everyone has broadband there is no equivalent. The slowness is either because the page is so heavyweight in terms of memory or processing power (note that more money does not buy much single-threaded performance), or because it's making so many network requests that everyone faces at a similar latency. Even the fastest computer and the highest-end Internet access can't get you such a huge advantage in performance that it can make the web feel snappy again.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    All programs grow to outstrip available computing resources?
  - 15charlimit 9y ago
    > Even the fastest computer and the highest-end Internet access can't get you such a huge advantage in performance that it can make the web feel snappy again. Until you install an adblocker and disable javascript. An enormous amount of modern-web overhead is adtech and user tracking cancer. If you don't believe me, install privacy badger/ghostery and ublock origin, visit any popular news/entertainment website, and look at the number of blocked elements/requests as you load a few articles. All of those take time and suck up resources.
    - flappysquirrel 9y ago
      Bufferbloat.
buckminster 9y ago
I've experienced this. My first computer managed about 100 flop/s, or 3 Gflop/year. A modern PC can do that year's work in a millisecond! Yet when my current computer struggles to display a web page there isn't much interesting computation going on.

by dagss 9y ago

bo1024 9y ago

I think the opposite direction is actually more telling. Developers tolerate bloat and BS up to the level of seconds. So there is plenty of computation being done that only requires milli or microseconds, but due to development practices now stretches just out into the annoying time frame. (Prime example: the growth of web pages to match increases in processing, RAM, and internet speeds, means that the web is actually slower to use these days.)

bjterry 9y ago
When the web was young and most people were on dialup, having access to a T1 meant that everything happened nearly instantaneously. All the sites were optimized for dialup levels of complexity. Now that everyone has broadband there is no equivalent. The slowness is either because the page is so heavyweight in terms of memory or processing power (note that more money does not buy much single-threaded performance), or because it's making so many network requests that everyone faces at a similar latency. Even the fastest computer and the highest-end Internet access can't get you such a huge advantage in performance that it can make the web feel snappy again.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  All programs grow to outstrip available computing resources?
- 15charlimit 9y ago
  > Even the fastest computer and the highest-end Internet access can't get you such a huge advantage in performance that it can make the web feel snappy again. Until you install an adblocker and disable javascript. An enormous amount of modern-web overhead is adtech and user tracking cancer. If you don't believe me, install privacy badger/ghostery and ublock origin, visit any popular news/entertainment website, and look at the number of blocked elements/requests as you load a few articles. All of those take time and suck up resources.
  - flappysquirrel 9y ago
    Bufferbloat.

buckminster 9y ago

I've experienced this. My first computer managed about 100 flop/s, or 3 Gflop/year. A modern PC can do that year's work in a millisecond! Yet when my current computer struggles to display a web page there isn't much interesting computation going on.