6 ms·

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of

I think these programmers were forced to understand their subject matter much better than today. Say for (a silly) example you want the first 10 000 digits of Pi. It's pretty easy to just store that today. But back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is, you had to have the smallest program to calculate it that you can think of. Would be interesting to hear too how Tekken 3's coders managed to work with 2 MB of RAM.

newswasboring 6y ago
yeah but modern programmers are also solving harder problems. Compare games from early consoles and today, the scope is vastly larger.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Like shipping Electron apps.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Electron solves a very important problem. It efficiently prevents those pesky Linux users from using your software. Most electron apps simply do not work with Wine.
    - valzam 6y ago
      Wait, what? The point of electron is to be cross platform, I never had an issue running an electron app on Linux.
      - noisem4ker 6y ago
        It seems to me that the point of Electron is, in many cases, to leverage existing knowledge of client-side web programming paradigms and tools. Multi-platform support is just a bonus that comes with it.
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    Honestly dude, I know you are trying to joke and all but this just sounds incredibly rude. This minimization of someone else's skill is petty and absurd. Electron apps serve their purpose and have their place, hating on them will not get you anywhere.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Yep, turning my computer into a heater doing cold winter. Sometimes it is really important.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - papito 6y ago
    Writing Electron apps for me, as a matter of fact, brings back the time when one had to be hyper-mindful of CPU cycles, just like back in the day when I was writing Windows apps in C++. Everything is going through the prism of "but how much will it cost in terms of performance? Granted, this should be the case for server software as well, but in case of clients, you don't know what ghetto shit your code will run on - you write for the worst possible case. Server specs are unknown.
    - clownpenis_fart 6y ago
      Here it is. The stupidest thing I've read all day.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    Folks crap on Electron apps and rightfully so, but I absolutely LOVE one thing about them relative to native GUI apps. I can hit cmd+ and cmd- to scale their content and UI up and down. That is dang near a killer feature for me. Very handy for presenting, screen sharing, when I move my apps to an external monitor with a slightly different UI, or for moments when my eyes are simply tired and I want something easy to read. You can say that I shouldn't need hundreds of MB of RAM to run Slack's desktop client, and you ain't wrong, but I've got plenty of RAM. My eyes and my time are much more finite resources.
pjmlp 6y ago
Which is why I find so ironic that many still think only languages like Assembly, C or C++ have a place in IoT on devices like ESP32. Sure, we used Assembly when performance was the ultimate goal, but also plenty of high level languages, including stuff like Clipper for database front ends. 512 KB with a couple of MHz are already capable of doing a lot of stuff, one just needs to actually think how to properly implement it.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  Given the security track-record of those languages, I sure hope not.
- jstimpfle 6y ago
  > Which is why I find so ironic that many still think only languages like Assembly, C or C++ have a place in IoT on devices like ESP32. Short answer, Parkinson's law. When I browse the Web, open my Windows File Explorer, open Photoshop, open Visual Studio, open just a graphical application that needs GPU acceleration, or do whatever thing that should not be an issue, I find that Parkinson's law very much applies. https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=1727 https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=1727 https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=2172 https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=2172 https://twitter.com/rogerclark/status/1247299730314416128 https://twitter.com/rogerclark/status/1247299730314416128 Wtf. Did you see how fast VS6 started on a machine from almost 20 years ago. Today I get depressed whenever I need to open Visual Studio, and I don't even know that I use any more functionality that wasn't available 20 years ago. Many many programmers (in my perception at least) are extremely dissatisfied with today's state of computing, and the reason why we got here is the popular opinion that we don't need to worry about performance. Nobody should optimize representations of Pi or count CPU cycles by default. That's not the point. But if you claim that Java is always fast enough for example, then I think we're having a strong disagreement. It's partly confirmation bias and being unaware of vast parts of the landscape, but it's also a fact, that I couldn't name you a complex GUI written in Java with satisfying ergonomics.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    The problem isn't Java, after all Photoshop also has performance issues when compared with its old self, and it is C++. The problem is that mechanical sympathy seems to be a lost art, and it is going to be slow as molasses regardless of the language being used. What to expect when Electron is the new darling for writing desktop applications?
pm321 6y ago
"back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is, you had to have the smallest program to calculate it" A floating point division on two three digit numbers used to be used as a good enough approximation to 𝛑.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  3.14159 is often a good enough approximation for pi.
danbolt 6y ago
I'm not sure if you saw the interview on Polygon [1], but I really liked hearing about doing the first Tekken port from arcades to PS1 and dealing with the newer memory constraints. [1] https://youtu.be/XB0mgLo9lEw?t=1214 https://youtu.be/XB0mgLo9lEw?t=1214

newswasboring 6y ago

yeah but modern programmers are also solving harder problems. Compare games from early consoles and today, the scope is vastly larger.

pjmlp 6y ago
Like shipping Electron apps.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Electron solves a very important problem. It efficiently prevents those pesky Linux users from using your software. Most electron apps simply do not work with Wine.
  - valzam 6y ago
    Wait, what? The point of electron is to be cross platform, I never had an issue running an electron app on Linux.
    - noisem4ker 6y ago
      It seems to me that the point of Electron is, in many cases, to leverage existing knowledge of client-side web programming paradigms and tools. Multi-platform support is just a bonus that comes with it.
- newswasboring 6y ago
  Honestly dude, I know you are trying to joke and all but this just sounds incredibly rude. This minimization of someone else's skill is petty and absurd. Electron apps serve their purpose and have their place, hating on them will not get you anywhere.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Yep, turning my computer into a heater doing cold winter. Sometimes it is really important.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- papito 6y ago
  Writing Electron apps for me, as a matter of fact, brings back the time when one had to be hyper-mindful of CPU cycles, just like back in the day when I was writing Windows apps in C++. Everything is going through the prism of "but how much will it cost in terms of performance? Granted, this should be the case for server software as well, but in case of clients, you don't know what ghetto shit your code will run on - you write for the worst possible case. Server specs are unknown.
  - clownpenis_fart 6y ago
    Here it is. The stupidest thing I've read all day.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  Folks crap on Electron apps and rightfully so, but I absolutely LOVE one thing about them relative to native GUI apps. I can hit cmd+ and cmd- to scale their content and UI up and down. That is dang near a killer feature for me. Very handy for presenting, screen sharing, when I move my apps to an external monitor with a slightly different UI, or for moments when my eyes are simply tired and I want something easy to read. You can say that I shouldn't need hundreds of MB of RAM to run Slack's desktop client, and you ain't wrong, but I've got plenty of RAM. My eyes and my time are much more finite resources.

pjmlp 6y ago

Which is why I find so ironic that many still think only languages like Assembly, C or C++ have a place in IoT on devices like ESP32. Sure, we used Assembly when performance was the ultimate goal, but also plenty of high level languages, including stuff like Clipper for database front ends. 512 KB with a couple of MHz are already capable of doing a lot of stuff, one just needs to actually think how to properly implement it.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
Given the security track-record of those languages, I sure hope not.
jstimpfle 6y ago
> Which is why I find so ironic that many still think only languages like Assembly, C or C++ have a place in IoT on devices like ESP32. Short answer, Parkinson's law. When I browse the Web, open my Windows File Explorer, open Photoshop, open Visual Studio, open just a graphical application that needs GPU acceleration, or do whatever thing that should not be an issue, I find that Parkinson's law very much applies. https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=1727 https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=1727 https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=2172 https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?t=2172 https://twitter.com/rogerclark/status/1247299730314416128 https://twitter.com/rogerclark/status/1247299730314416128 Wtf. Did you see how fast VS6 started on a machine from almost 20 years ago. Today I get depressed whenever I need to open Visual Studio, and I don't even know that I use any more functionality that wasn't available 20 years ago. Many many programmers (in my perception at least) are extremely dissatisfied with today's state of computing, and the reason why we got here is the popular opinion that we don't need to worry about performance. Nobody should optimize representations of Pi or count CPU cycles by default. That's not the point. But if you claim that Java is always fast enough for example, then I think we're having a strong disagreement. It's partly confirmation bias and being unaware of vast parts of the landscape, but it's also a fact, that I couldn't name you a complex GUI written in Java with satisfying ergonomics.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  The problem isn't Java, after all Photoshop also has performance issues when compared with its old self, and it is C++. The problem is that mechanical sympathy seems to be a lost art, and it is going to be slow as molasses regardless of the language being used. What to expect when Electron is the new darling for writing desktop applications?

pm321 6y ago

"back then you didn't just have to know what Pi is, you had to have the smallest program to calculate it" A floating point division on two three digit numbers used to be used as a good enough approximation to 𝛑.

saagarjha 6y ago
3.14159 is often a good enough approximation for pi.

danbolt 6y ago

I'm not sure if you saw the interview on Polygon [1], but I really liked hearing about doing the first Tekken port from arcades to PS1 and dealing with the newer memory constraints. [1] https://youtu.be/XB0mgLo9lEw?t=1214 https://youtu.be/XB0mgLo9lEw?t=1214