3 ms·

I mean "capable of running useful software". There are vanishingly few use-cases which actually demand the resources of newer computers - 99% of software with h

I mean "capable of running useful software". There are vanishingly few use-cases which actually demand the resources of newer computers - 99% of software with high system requirements is due to programmers who have grown fat on the teat of their high-end workstations.

zepto 6y ago
This seems to be an argument for not buying new computers. I don’t entirely disagree with you. I would say that a lot of compute resources are used to make user interfaces more impressive, but not necessarily better than what could be done if we designed interfaces around lower resources. However that isn’t what we’ve done. Older computers often can’t run software that is useful today even if the software they could run when they were new still does the job. Things like file formats and web standards have moved on and are not backwards compatible, and a lot of what people use computers for is communication, so that matters.
- ddevault 6y ago
  >This seems to be an argument for not buying new computers. That's exactly what this is an argument for. It's also an argument for programmers to accomodate this.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Programmers accommodating this is a deep problem, although I agree it’s one worth solving.