5 ms·
Counterintuitively, software performance as a whole is not a function of hardware, it's a function of human tolerance. Apps are as slow as we humans are willing
by hbrn 4y ago
Counterintuitively, software performance as a whole is not a function of hardware, it's a function of human tolerance. Apps are as slow as we humans are willing to tolerate.
As hardware gets better, we're finding ways to use it less efficiently.
So if you want apps to become faster, you shouldn't be building better hardware. You should be changing human tolerance thresholds.
Which is almost impossible to pull off. Apple did this when they released the iPhone. Remember mobile apps before iOS? Mobile browsers before Safari?
- MattPalmer1086 4y agoI like your take that human tolerance is the limiting factor. I'd agree that is a major constraint. The rest of it is just economics. When I started programming, people I learned from would optimise code in assembler, use clever algorithms and write highly unreadable code that was impossible to debug. One bit of code I remember interleaved various operations so that it's access would line up with disk reads. I rewrote it to just hold the data on memory. It wasn't much faster than his disk based code in practice. But the only reason to go to that kind of effort was the severe constraints hardware placed on software. When those are largely removed, the imperative is to write code fast that other people can still understand.
- nurbl 4y agoI think part of it is the terrible software people are forced to use at work, which is bought by people who only look at feature lists and price. This stuff eats away at their expectations until they are OK with bloated stuff like discord for private use too.