> Are we ever going to get compilers to the point where we can squash things down to that size and efficiency? Compilers are already that good. The problem is

> Are we ever going to get compilers to the point where we can squash things down to that size and efficiency? Compilers are already that good. The problem is economics. If you have an OS that uses up 1% of the available CPU budget, there will be pressure from management & product to spend the additional 99% on additional bells & whistles. Maybe you add fancy animations and transitions to window opening. Maybe you add full-HD search and spend additional CPU cycles indexing. Maybe you add transparent cloud storage and spend the additional CPU cycles backing up files. Maybe you add new frameworks for developer productivity, all of which suck up CPU time. And the thing is - from a business perspective, these are all the right thing to do. Because having a slick, glossy UI and a long list of useful features will sell more copies, while being able to run it on a USB-C charger or 25 year old computer will probably not sell more copies.