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Why should precious developer time and resources be devoted to supporting pre-2006 hardware?

by dtech 7y ago

jeroenhd 7y ago
A system that runs smoothly on 2006 hardware runs blazingly fast on modern hardware. It's also likely to consume less resources and power. There's also the fact that many developers live in rich countries where good hardware is relatively cheap and easy to come by. Developing countries usually don't have access to reasonably priced hardware at all. There's billions of people whose hardware is barely capable of running a Vista equivalent. That alone should be reason to consider developing with older systems in mind. Developing to keep an old system somewhat smooth can lead to improvements across the board. There's pros and cons to every decision and I certainly don't think every piece of software should be designed to run on a Core2Duo. In many cases some considerations for those who can't bug fancy hardware would be nice though.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > A system that runs smoothly on 2006 hardware runs blazingly fast on modern hardware. This is especially true wrt. memory use, BTW. Memory bandwidth is, as a rule of thumb, the main bottleneck affecting performance in present-day systems, so most savings in RAM use yield very real increases in performance for real-world scenarios. Also, less RAM use makes it easier to run a useful number of virtual machines or containers, even on non-high class hardware.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Most Linux DEs do not use a lot of memory (don't know about Gnome). They do require accelerated 3D or 2D, but run well within the RAM envelope of a 2006 machine. The problem is, running on the CPU does not make your DE faster (it's the other way around), memory that is the largest problem isn't an issue, there is some heavy disk usage on load time, but then none, and there isn't much of a CPU load. They can't run on a 2006 machine, but it does not extend into your VM.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    Just want to say that CPU is often the bottleneck for end users on old hardware and low-end laptops. For example, youtube doesn't play well, because the hardware is too slow to decode a full HD video stream in real time. No kidding, that's actually a big driver for people to buy newer hardware, people really care about youtube. Another example. Loading a modern website with 10 MB of javascript bundles. It takes 5-10 seconds to process all that javascript in chrome (on developer workstations), which is slow but fine. Unfortunately that's 15-30 seconds on laptops and mobiles for end users, that is quite a lot, enough that people leave thinking the site is broken.
anoncake 7y ago
So precious energy, resources and labour don't have to be devoted to replace perfectly good hardware.
user5994461 7y ago
CPU performance didn't increase dramatically since the period around 2006 (core 2 duo generation). An application that doesn't run smoothly on old hardware like that will probably not run well on current hardware either. It's twice as true if the application should be usable on modern low-end laptops, that can really have terrible hardware, worse than a desktop from back then.

Why should precious developer time and resources be devoted to supporting pre-2006 hardware?

by dtech 7y ago

Why should precious developer time and resources be devoted to supporting pre-2006 hardware?

A system that runs smoothly on 2006 hardware runs blazingly fast on modern hardware. It's also likely to consume less resources and power. There's also the fact that many developers live in rich countries where good hardware is relatively cheap and easy to come by. Developing countries usually don't have access to reasonably priced hardware at all. There's billions of people whose hardware is barely capable of running a Vista equivalent. That alone should be reason to consider developing with older systems in mind. Developing to keep an old system somewhat smooth can lead to improvements across the board. There's pros and cons to every decision and I certainly don't think every piece of software should be designed to run on a Core2Duo. In many cases some considerations for those who can't bug fancy hardware would be nice though.

zozbot234 7y ago
> A system that runs smoothly on 2006 hardware runs blazingly fast on modern hardware. This is especially true wrt. memory use, BTW. Memory bandwidth is, as a rule of thumb, the main bottleneck affecting performance in present-day systems, so most savings in RAM use yield very real increases in performance for real-world scenarios. Also, less RAM use makes it easier to run a useful number of virtual machines or containers, even on non-high class hardware.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Most Linux DEs do not use a lot of memory (don't know about Gnome). They do require accelerated 3D or 2D, but run well within the RAM envelope of a 2006 machine. The problem is, running on the CPU does not make your DE faster (it's the other way around), memory that is the largest problem isn't an issue, there is some heavy disk usage on load time, but then none, and there isn't much of a CPU load. They can't run on a 2006 machine, but it does not extend into your VM.
- user5994461 7y ago
  Just want to say that CPU is often the bottleneck for end users on old hardware and low-end laptops. For example, youtube doesn't play well, because the hardware is too slow to decode a full HD video stream in real time. No kidding, that's actually a big driver for people to buy newer hardware, people really care about youtube. Another example. Loading a modern website with 10 MB of javascript bundles. It takes 5-10 seconds to process all that javascript in chrome (on developer workstations), which is slow but fine. Unfortunately that's 15-30 seconds on laptops and mobiles for end users, that is quite a lot, enough that people leave thinking the site is broken.

anoncake 7y ago

So precious energy, resources and labour don't have to be devoted to replace perfectly good hardware.

user5994461 7y ago

CPU performance didn't increase dramatically since the period around 2006 (core 2 duo generation). An application that doesn't run smoothly on old hardware like that will probably not run well on current hardware either. It's twice as true if the application should be usable on modern low-end laptops, that can really have terrible hardware, worse than a desktop from back then.