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This is brilliant and hilarious, but, as a person that cares about this I honestly have no idea what to do. Fighting software waste feels like getting in a fist

This is brilliant and hilarious, but, as a person that cares about this I honestly have no idea what to do. Fighting software waste feels like getting in a fistfight with the ocean or something. I could write everything in C or assembly, I don't even think that notion is crazy, but my client's want javascript. Not that it's even javascripts fault, or any particular languages fault, I just don't know how you convince anyone that maaayybee we could actually take advantage of the hardware in front of us instead of just adding extra waste every 18 months.

dave_blob 7y ago
As we're in a closed energy loop we're going to have to address this, sooner rather than later. Every starry eyed AI/ML piece has me thinking, yes but where's the power going to come from? And where's the power on top to encrypt all this? And quantum computing? Super-cooling at scale? Aye right pal. The elegance of the AGC and it's approach to computing could provide a good starting point to a solution out of our mess. to quote from a 2004 paper by Don Eyles, one of the AGC programmers: "When Hal Laning designed the Executive and Waitlist system in the mid 1960's, he made it up from whole cloth with no examples to guide him. The design is still valid today. The allocation of functions among a sensible number of asynchronous processes, under control of a rate- and priority-driven preemptive executive, still represents the state of the art in real-time GN&C computers for spacecraft." https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html
axaxs 7y ago
Nah. I feel a lot like you, and can't wait for the day optimizations matter again. But realistically, fat chance. It's easier and cheaper to hire 50 code monkeys to throw crap at the wall and make something surprisingly functional than it is to hire a few who know how to wrangle bits NES style. And even as processors max out, it's still cheaper to just throw more CPUs at the problem. There will always be niche markets that demand real understanding and skills, but the general 'coder' market is lost for good.
7952 7y ago
Software bloat is a problem. But I am not sure this is really an example of that. I would guess that they used a relatively powerful microcontroller because it was cheaper and easier than implementation using custom or discrete components. And processors have become so ridiculously cheap that it is cheaper to implement features in software than hardware. As a programmer I think that is really exciting. The trend is to use microprocessors for increasingly trivial things. You use that power to implement a UI, or a light bulb, or charger. That is far less important than driving a spac ship. But isn't that true of most things we develop? I agree that the trend towards browser based apps is not always efficient. But the browser does a surprising amount in the background to even out hardware differences. It helps you take advantage of the hardware (like a powerful GPU) without having to worry about specifics. That was never exactly easy in developing a conventional native app on a traditional OS.
RivieraKid 7y ago
Interesting, I see absolutely no problem with this. There's no reason to use worse chips in USB-C chargers, because the cost savings would be minimal and possibly outweighed by software development costs.

dave_blob 7y ago

As we're in a closed energy loop we're going to have to address this, sooner rather than later. Every starry eyed AI/ML piece has me thinking, yes but where's the power going to come from? And where's the power on top to encrypt all this? And quantum computing? Super-cooling at scale? Aye right pal. The elegance of the AGC and it's approach to computing could provide a good starting point to a solution out of our mess. to quote from a 2004 paper by Don Eyles, one of the AGC programmers: "When Hal Laning designed the Executive and Waitlist system in the mid 1960's, he made it up from whole cloth with no examples to guide him. The design is still valid today. The allocation of functions among a sensible number of asynchronous processes, under control of a rate- and priority-driven preemptive executive, still represents the state of the art in real-time GN&C computers for spacecraft." https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html

axaxs 7y ago

Nah. I feel a lot like you, and can't wait for the day optimizations matter again. But realistically, fat chance. It's easier and cheaper to hire 50 code monkeys to throw crap at the wall and make something surprisingly functional than it is to hire a few who know how to wrangle bits NES style. And even as processors max out, it's still cheaper to just throw more CPUs at the problem. There will always be niche markets that demand real understanding and skills, but the general 'coder' market is lost for good.

7952 7y ago

Software bloat is a problem. But I am not sure this is really an example of that. I would guess that they used a relatively powerful microcontroller because it was cheaper and easier than implementation using custom or discrete components. And processors have become so ridiculously cheap that it is cheaper to implement features in software than hardware. As a programmer I think that is really exciting. The trend is to use microprocessors for increasingly trivial things. You use that power to implement a UI, or a light bulb, or charger. That is far less important than driving a spac ship. But isn't that true of most things we develop? I agree that the trend towards browser based apps is not always efficient. But the browser does a surprising amount in the background to even out hardware differences. It helps you take advantage of the hardware (like a powerful GPU) without having to worry about specifics. That was never exactly easy in developing a conventional native app on a traditional OS.

RivieraKid 7y ago

Interesting, I see absolutely no problem with this. There's no reason to use worse chips in USB-C chargers, because the cost savings would be minimal and possibly outweighed by software development costs.