3 ms·

You're probably right. Applications definitely are a lot more lax on resource consumption. I've sat down and enumerated the things I do daily on my computer ve

You're probably right. Applications definitely are a lot more lax on resource consumption. I've sat down and enumerated the things I do daily on my computer versus what I did back in ~2000. Besides streaming (youtube, netflix and spotify basically), its pretty uncommon that I do anything that I couldn't or didn't do back then. The performance of these things, now, seems about the same anecdotally. Maybe it was a little slower then, but not so much slower compared to the hardware performance difference. It makes me sad. Also, as I said in other comments, I once developed hobby projects on a netbook. I of course ran a minimal system and didn't run resource hogs like slack. I'm currently using a cheap laptop running a minimal system (but unfortunately I do need to use slack, chrome, docker for work). They run fine. I think developers or companies have decided that developer time is more important than performance and resource use of their products, punting the cost of that onto their customers. If my work didn't require it, I would definitely switch to more resource conscious tools and I'd be a bit happier. Oh well.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I would agree, and I hate that attitude in developers. Technology is a force multiplier, when you write something slow you're multiplying that slowness and all the time it wastes across the lives of your entire user base over the lifetime of the product.
antisthenes 8y ago
I think browsers is what regressed the most. I used to be able to open 3 Twitch streams in 720/1080p back in 2010 on a dual core Athlon X2 5000. These days, if I open 2 HD streams in Firefox on a 4.2 Ghz quad-core 4670k, the system essentially freezes - the browser becomes unusable and both streams lag. Thank god for streamlink that lets you bypass the browser interface and view the streams in VLC or MPV. Not to mention Electron-based apps using 600-800MB for a chat program with some light jpeg usage. Developers' blatant disregard the the use of user's system resources is insane. It seems that regardless of hardware improvements, the modern developer only targets "acceptable" levels of performance, leaving power users frustrated.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

I would agree, and I hate that attitude in developers. Technology is a force multiplier, when you write something slow you're multiplying that slowness and all the time it wastes across the lives of your entire user base over the lifetime of the product.

antisthenes 8y ago

I think browsers is what regressed the most. I used to be able to open 3 Twitch streams in 720/1080p back in 2010 on a dual core Athlon X2 5000. These days, if I open 2 HD streams in Firefox on a 4.2 Ghz quad-core 4670k, the system essentially freezes - the browser becomes unusable and both streams lag. Thank god for streamlink that lets you bypass the browser interface and view the streams in VLC or MPV. Not to mention Electron-based apps using 600-800MB for a chat program with some light jpeg usage. Developers' blatant disregard the the use of user's system resources is insane. It seems that regardless of hardware improvements, the modern developer only targets "acceptable" levels of performance, leaving power users frustrated.