3 ms·

I can honestly say that I have never checked or cared about how much RAM Slack uses. Or any other software for that matter. It's certainly not an issue that I'd

I can honestly say that I have never checked or cared about how much RAM Slack uses. Or any other software for that matter. It's certainly not an issue that I'd use as the basis for deciding which team communication tool to use.

IggleSniggle 7y ago
Yeah see the people that are caring about this are caring because it has used up all of their available RAM, has pushed stuff into Virtual Memory, and it is causing performance problems for their system. Or, if they are IT, it is causing performance problems on their users' systems. This is a pretty reasonable complaint when you're talking about a system with 2gb, and a chat application that uses 1.5gb of memory...or heck, a 16gb system when you have programs that legitimately need as much memory as you can give them and are being starved of it. Nobody would begrudge this usage if it was necessary for the task, but it isn't. Not even close. Edit: Apparently this is better than it used to be, but there have been times when Slack also ate up CPU like crazy. Which, again, no biggie if you have plenty to spare, but when you don't...and even then, if you have plenty to spare, you're still going to be annoyed with Slack if it's eating all of your battery because the CPU is working really really really hard at...um...dunno? If it were mining bitcoin/monero without your knowledge or consent then at least it would be DOING something.
- allana 7y ago
  CPU nomming is a worse problem IMO, as your fans spin up and battery life shrinks. Other chat clients don't use notable resources, its suprising that Slack hasn't had much pushback over its heavy resource usage thus far.
- scott_s 7y ago
  "Virtual memory" is not a synonym for swap space: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2937597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2937597
  - MiroF 7y ago
    Is this really such a common mistake? What is virtual about putting memory onto a hard drive
    - scott_s 7y ago
      In my experience, yes, I see the misconception frequently. I think it stems from Microsoft using the name "Virtual memory size" for swap space in earlier versions of Windows.
  - IggleSniggle 7y ago
    Thank you for the gentle correction. I will now also start using "thrashing" more accurately.

IggleSniggle 7y ago

Yeah see the people that are caring about this are caring because it has used up all of their available RAM, has pushed stuff into Virtual Memory, and it is causing performance problems for their system. Or, if they are IT, it is causing performance problems on their users' systems. This is a pretty reasonable complaint when you're talking about a system with 2gb, and a chat application that uses 1.5gb of memory...or heck, a 16gb system when you have programs that legitimately need as much memory as you can give them and are being starved of it. Nobody would begrudge this usage if it was necessary for the task, but it isn't. Not even close. Edit: Apparently this is better than it used to be, but there have been times when Slack also ate up CPU like crazy. Which, again, no biggie if you have plenty to spare, but when you don't...and even then, if you have plenty to spare, you're still going to be annoyed with Slack if it's eating all of your battery because the CPU is working really really really hard at...um...dunno? If it were mining bitcoin/monero without your knowledge or consent then at least it would be DOING something.

allana 7y ago
CPU nomming is a worse problem IMO, as your fans spin up and battery life shrinks. Other chat clients don't use notable resources, its suprising that Slack hasn't had much pushback over its heavy resource usage thus far.
scott_s 7y ago
"Virtual memory" is not a synonym for swap space: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2937597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2937597
- MiroF 7y ago
  Is this really such a common mistake? What is virtual about putting memory onto a hard drive
  - scott_s 7y ago
    In my experience, yes, I see the misconception frequently. I think it stems from Microsoft using the name "Virtual memory size" for swap space in earlier versions of Windows.
- IggleSniggle 7y ago
  Thank you for the gentle correction. I will now also start using "thrashing" more accurately.