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For me the nostalgia is for something a little deeper: developing under resource constraints. Anyone else feels that with resource limitations came good softwar

For me the nostalgia is for something a little deeper: developing under resource constraints. Anyone else feels that with resource limitations came good software design and code? Or am I off my rocker ?

Annatar 7y ago
I still write all my software like that and am able to do so because of the programming language choices - shell and AWK, running on a true UNIX®️. My programs are full-blown applications compliant with all POSIX command line standards, yet they are only a few KB in size and use maybe several hundred KB of memory. They run so fast I never need to translate them into a compiled language. Even when I write in C, I still write the program to be as small and as fast as possible, although sometimes I sacrifice memory consumption for that, but I'm solving a different set of problems in those cases.
- vmurthy 7y ago
  Hi , Interesting to hear this. Out of curiosity, what field do you work on which gives you the opportunity to do this?
  - Annatar 7y ago
    I won't name the industry out of privacy paranoia, but I do large scale IT technical architecture and lots and lots of classic system engineering (requirements gathering, writing specifications, implementing those, writing manual pages for the software I develop). The reason I'm able to do that is due to massive off-shoring at the client where I consult: I am one of the handful of people left in "a high cost location" who can debug, link, compile and package software correctly, thereby making large and complex software easy to install and JustWork™️. Management is for the most part unaware of all of my software running underneath until some major application goes live and then I give them a presentation on what is ticking underneath. This comes from my days of assembler coding of intros and cracking software on the Commodore64 and the Amiga: one learns the value of writing small, fast code very quickly and that programming and code design style stays with one for the rest of one's life. With its vast memory, processing power and built-in tools like AWK, UNIX®️ makes that style of programming small, fast software even easier. I spent decades studying what all UNIX®️ and its tools can do and have to offer though.

Annatar 7y ago

I still write all my software like that and am able to do so because of the programming language choices - shell and AWK, running on a true UNIX®️. My programs are full-blown applications compliant with all POSIX command line standards, yet they are only a few KB in size and use maybe several hundred KB of memory. They run so fast I never need to translate them into a compiled language. Even when I write in C, I still write the program to be as small and as fast as possible, although sometimes I sacrifice memory consumption for that, but I'm solving a different set of problems in those cases.

vmurthy 7y ago
Hi , Interesting to hear this. Out of curiosity, what field do you work on which gives you the opportunity to do this?
- Annatar 7y ago
  I won't name the industry out of privacy paranoia, but I do large scale IT technical architecture and lots and lots of classic system engineering (requirements gathering, writing specifications, implementing those, writing manual pages for the software I develop). The reason I'm able to do that is due to massive off-shoring at the client where I consult: I am one of the handful of people left in "a high cost location" who can debug, link, compile and package software correctly, thereby making large and complex software easy to install and JustWork™️. Management is for the most part unaware of all of my software running underneath until some major application goes live and then I give them a presentation on what is ticking underneath. This comes from my days of assembler coding of intros and cracking software on the Commodore64 and the Amiga: one learns the value of writing small, fast code very quickly and that programming and code design style stays with one for the rest of one's life. With its vast memory, processing power and built-in tools like AWK, UNIX®️ makes that style of programming small, fast software even easier. I spent decades studying what all UNIX®️ and its tools can do and have to offer though.