4 ms·

Sure, but to know that the critical 3% is, you typically need to first build it, and then measure it. Only in rare cases is it so blindingly obvious that the p

Sure, but to know that the critical 3% is, you typically need to first build it, and then measure it. Only in rare cases is it so blindingly obvious that the part you are working on will be in the critical 3%; nearly always, you need to actually measure first. To be able to measure, you must first build.

dahart 7y ago
I can agree with everything you said, but I don’t think there’s really the paradox here or chicken-egg problem that you’re implying. It’s not difficult to make design decisions before building based on the specs of your components. It’s not hard to know that filling pixels via a scripting language or waiting on a synchronous internet request is going to hose your responsiveness. It is possible to make reasonable design decisions before you build, and to reach responsiveness before you optimize. The main reason people fail to reach responsiveness is for lack of making responsiveness an up-front requirement, it’s not for lack of optimization.
cookiecaper 7y ago
The key component you're missing here is the role of performance in overall design and architecture. If responsiveness is a goal, as it should be in any GUI but especially must be in a system intended for use in medical emergencies, there are high-level decisions that can be made to keep things in the right ballpark. One of these decisions may be "the interface should never have to wait for a network response", for example. The process of micro-optimizing specific segments of program code still needs to depend on actual benchmarks and measurements, but the value of reasonable and experienced system architecture that considers the actual requirements of the problem domain cannot be overstated. You're sunk from the get-go if you make the wrong tradeoffs here. Unfortunately, the industry is mostly populated by clowns who are just blistering to get the hottest buzzword listed on their resume, very frequently rising up to the point of blatant professional misconduct. This leads to many truly absurdist design decisions that sink projects long before the first chunk of code goes into production.
- defined 7y ago
  Maybe the missing key component is the role of architecture in providing a platform for performance ;)

dahart 7y ago

I can agree with everything you said, but I don’t think there’s really the paradox here or chicken-egg problem that you’re implying. It’s not difficult to make design decisions before building based on the specs of your components. It’s not hard to know that filling pixels via a scripting language or waiting on a synchronous internet request is going to hose your responsiveness. It is possible to make reasonable design decisions before you build, and to reach responsiveness before you optimize. The main reason people fail to reach responsiveness is for lack of making responsiveness an up-front requirement, it’s not for lack of optimization.

cookiecaper 7y ago

The key component you're missing here is the role of performance in overall design and architecture. If responsiveness is a goal, as it should be in any GUI but especially must be in a system intended for use in medical emergencies, there are high-level decisions that can be made to keep things in the right ballpark. One of these decisions may be "the interface should never have to wait for a network response", for example. The process of micro-optimizing specific segments of program code still needs to depend on actual benchmarks and measurements, but the value of reasonable and experienced system architecture that considers the actual requirements of the problem domain cannot be overstated. You're sunk from the get-go if you make the wrong tradeoffs here. Unfortunately, the industry is mostly populated by clowns who are just blistering to get the hottest buzzword listed on their resume, very frequently rising up to the point of blatant professional misconduct. This leads to many truly absurdist design decisions that sink projects long before the first chunk of code goes into production.

defined 7y ago
Maybe the missing key component is the role of architecture in providing a platform for performance ;)