4 ms·
Yes. Computers are fast. Who cares about algorithms... Premature optimization is evil... But why then it is so annoying that Visual Studio starts longer than m
by kia 16y ago
Yes. Computers are fast. Who cares about algorithms... Premature optimization is evil...
But why then it is so annoying that Visual Studio starts longer than my whole custom linux system in VM on the same computer...
- billybob 16y agoI'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'm on the same page. I try to focus on clarity and elegance in my code, and only worry about speed if it turns out to be slow. But I sure as heck grumble when my computer is slow. "You've got, like, 800 hojillion cycles a second!" I say to it. "How hard is opening a program?!" Is that hypocritical?
- kia 16y agoOn the first launch VS is slower. Disclaimer: I am using custom gnu/linux built entirely form sources.
- barrkel 16y agoI blame I/O. It's pretty fast warmed up.
- Symbol 16y agoI/O is one of my biggest daily pains. Spend some time in Process Explorer on Windows and you can see just how much disk-based I/O the average app is doing. Anti-virus software makes the bad problem worse. It's just like pouring sugar in a gastank. Why isn't more software designed to take advantage, where appropriate, of large amounts of RAM?
- frou_dh 16y agoDid you see that article on the Varnish site about second-guessing Virtual Memory? "2006 programmng" I think it was.
- jholman 16y agoobligatory HN links: Varnish dev says second-guessing VM is so 1975: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554656 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1554656 OR http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760811 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760811 Redis dev says second-guessing VM is elite (and not doing so is so 2006): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760540 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1760540
- potatolicious 16y agoSometimes I wonder if the OS can put very heavily used files from the FS into RAM. Some software just sucks and keeps pulling the same files over and over... ... and the plus side is, if an application needs the RAM, no harm done, just dump the file from RAM and read it from disk.
- senki 16y agoGood idea. They already do it.
- TeHCrAzY 16y agoSpecifically: SuperFetch, first seen in Vista: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I/O_technologies#SuperFetch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_I/O_technologies#...
- silentbicycle 16y agoOr Unix's mmap, which predates Vista by a couple decades. (It was designed around the time of 4.2BSD, i.e., 1983* .) I'd be shocked if Windows hasn't had a similar mechanism for years, as well. * _The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System_, McKusick et al., p. 29-30.
- barrkel 16y agommap is not SuperFetch; and memory mapping has been in NT since it started. What SuperFetch does is collect statistics about files hit by processes when they start up, so it can proactively cache bits of those files, to the point that it can cache files read by processes before those processes are ever started, assuming they are either commonly started or started on a schedule.
- dagw 16y agoThat seems to be the lesson. Don't worry about a few thousands flops here or there, put your focus on minimizing IO.
- mistermann 16y agoThat's very weird. I can launch VS 2010 in < 3 seconds cold on my system. Maybe its a VM thing? VS might always think its launching for the very first time ever on that machine, so it has a lot of heavy duty, one time only things, but on a VM, it does this every time you boot the VM?
- dagw 16y agoI just timed it as well. VS c++ 2008 Express on my super old and slow P4, 5 seconds. And this is the first time I started VS in weeks.