3 ms·

Treating performance as a minimum bar that has to be met rather than a goal in and of itself sounds exactly like the kind of development process that would prod

by seldo 16y ago

Treating performance as a minimum bar that has to be met rather than a goal in and of itself sounds exactly like the kind of development process that would produce Windows -- which always feels sluggish if you're using anything other than the latest hardware. I don't think Microsoft realizes how enormously performance contributes to user dissatisfaction with their OS. As a web developer, I know that adding just a second to a page load massively diminishes perceived usefulness of a system; Google spends enormous amounts shaving tens of milliseconds off their page displays. At the level of an operating system, that kind of user sensitivity to performance must be at least the same if not magnified. It seems like performance, especially on older hardware, should be far more of a priority for Microsoft than it apparently is.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
To be fair, Windows 7 made some great strides, and ended up being faster than Vista on a lot of older hardware. However, that does tend to be the exception. The general perception of performance (at least in the areas of MS that I had contact with when I was working there) is that it's important to hold the line in performance, and it's not generally valuable to invest in actually improving performance over time. MS spends a lot of resources measuring performance very accurately, but not nearly enough resources in making appropriate architecture and design choices, or in making big performance improvement pushes. My experience and observation is that performance improvements of substantial magnitude are often available for the taking in almost all software projects, but it requires a concerted effort to realize those improvements. MS instead spends its efforts on merely making sure that the software doesn't get slower by too much.
pragmatic 16y ago
Consider that you can go to Bestbuy (or your local computer retailer or choice) and buy a $500 laptop capable of running Windows 7. A Mac is 2 to 5 times that. (Highest price PC at Bestbuy $1200, highest priced Mac ~$2200) (Macbook is $1000, pc is $300-$500). I installed Windows 7 on 2 laptops of family members. These laptops were $300 from Walmart. Windows 7 runs just fine. I installed Windows 7 on an Asus EEE pc. Runs about as well as Windows XP (only computer where I can tell it runs a littler slower). Considering a ~$800 ipad that isn't a full computer... I fail to grasp what kind of performance you expect to get out of Windows 7, while at the same time having a full featured OS at the same time running on _affordable_ hardware.
- BCM43 16y ago
  I can run a fully featured Linux system on a 800mhz laptop with 1gb of ram.

by seldo 16y ago

InclinedPlane 16y ago

To be fair, Windows 7 made some great strides, and ended up being faster than Vista on a lot of older hardware. However, that does tend to be the exception. The general perception of performance (at least in the areas of MS that I had contact with when I was working there) is that it's important to hold the line in performance, and it's not generally valuable to invest in actually improving performance over time. MS spends a lot of resources measuring performance very accurately, but not nearly enough resources in making appropriate architecture and design choices, or in making big performance improvement pushes. My experience and observation is that performance improvements of substantial magnitude are often available for the taking in almost all software projects, but it requires a concerted effort to realize those improvements. MS instead spends its efforts on merely making sure that the software doesn't get slower by too much.

pragmatic 16y ago

Consider that you can go to Bestbuy (or your local computer retailer or choice) and buy a $500 laptop capable of running Windows 7. A Mac is 2 to 5 times that. (Highest price PC at Bestbuy $1200, highest priced Mac ~$2200) (Macbook is $1000, pc is $300-$500). I installed Windows 7 on 2 laptops of family members. These laptops were $300 from Walmart. Windows 7 runs just fine. I installed Windows 7 on an Asus EEE pc. Runs about as well as Windows XP (only computer where I can tell it runs a littler slower). Considering a ~$800 ipad that isn't a full computer... I fail to grasp what kind of performance you expect to get out of Windows 7, while at the same time having a full featured OS at the same time running on _affordable_ hardware.

BCM43 16y ago
I can run a fully featured Linux system on a 800mhz laptop with 1gb of ram.