3 ms·

> Not if you needed twice and many engineers, or it took twice as long due to a complexity. I really don't understand. They'd just work somewhere else and con

> Not if you needed twice and many engineers, or it took twice as long due to a complexity. I really don't understand. They'd just work somewhere else and consume energy, housing and food. There'd be literally no difference.

uncomputation 5y ago
Not OP but I think he’s assuming that programmers are on demand like temps, as in once the system is “done,” they are fired. Obviously it doesn’t actually work this way but that might be the logic.
- cozzyd 5y ago
  Not just fired, but executed.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    That got dark fast
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      No, they just understood my complaint. This was originally about reducing global energy consumption by switching programming languages. You cannot reduce global energy consumption by firing (or not hiring) programmers because they still live on the planet and do the exact same thing. You'd literally have to execute the people who would doing the debugging for C code to cause such a reduction. This is the reductio ad absurdum that shows that it wasn't a valid point.
      - jacobr1 5y ago
        > This is the reductio ad absurdum that shows that it wasn't a valid point. I conceded, this is a convincing point. To flush out the argument though, it was coming from the perspective of the system consisting of the firm+employees delivering a project rather than the system of the entire earth. I don't think the smaller scope overcomes the overall point, but you could perhaps see where there might be some merit to the distinction. It is just that that distinction doesn't really matter. Theoretically, if you have fewer employees required to complete a project, then that project might use less energy. And if this holds true across the industry, then those non-employees _could_ be doing something more green. But equally they could doing something worse. And in practice for software, they would just be working on a different project or shipping more features or whatever, so it doesn't change the steady-state, even if a distinct project is delivered with lower energy cost. Even if all projects are more human-energy-efficient.
gpderetta 5y ago
Think of all the energy needed to produce all the coffee they consume!
dwaltrip 5y ago
Let's say the software solves some problem, call it P. We want to know the total energy cost for humanity to solve P. The people who are designing the software are using energy while they work on solving P. We need to include that energy usage in our total. If two different implementations use the same amount of compute, but one took 10 times longer to design and ship, then it is a less efficient solution, no? Those people (and their energy usage) could have been working towards solving some other problem or doing something else worthwhile.

uncomputation 5y ago

Not OP but I think he’s assuming that programmers are on demand like temps, as in once the system is “done,” they are fired. Obviously it doesn’t actually work this way but that might be the logic.

cozzyd 5y ago
Not just fired, but executed.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  That got dark fast
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    No, they just understood my complaint. This was originally about reducing global energy consumption by switching programming languages. You cannot reduce global energy consumption by firing (or not hiring) programmers because they still live on the planet and do the exact same thing. You'd literally have to execute the people who would doing the debugging for C code to cause such a reduction. This is the reductio ad absurdum that shows that it wasn't a valid point.
    - jacobr1 5y ago
      > This is the reductio ad absurdum that shows that it wasn't a valid point. I conceded, this is a convincing point. To flush out the argument though, it was coming from the perspective of the system consisting of the firm+employees delivering a project rather than the system of the entire earth. I don't think the smaller scope overcomes the overall point, but you could perhaps see where there might be some merit to the distinction. It is just that that distinction doesn't really matter. Theoretically, if you have fewer employees required to complete a project, then that project might use less energy. And if this holds true across the industry, then those non-employees _could_ be doing something more green. But equally they could doing something worse. And in practice for software, they would just be working on a different project or shipping more features or whatever, so it doesn't change the steady-state, even if a distinct project is delivered with lower energy cost. Even if all projects are more human-energy-efficient.

gpderetta 5y ago

Think of all the energy needed to produce all the coffee they consume!

dwaltrip 5y ago

Let's say the software solves some problem, call it P. We want to know the total energy cost for humanity to solve P. The people who are designing the software are using energy while they work on solving P. We need to include that energy usage in our total. If two different implementations use the same amount of compute, but one took 10 times longer to design and ship, then it is a less efficient solution, no? Those people (and their energy usage) could have been working towards solving some other problem or doing something else worthwhile.