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> More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow down my m1 Mac mini On the other hand, maybe there should

> More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow down my m1 Mac mini On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? I remember a decade ago being able to have a dozen browser tabs and instant messaging clients on 4GB of RAM just fine, and neither the web nor instant messaging experience has changed significantly enough to warrant the extra memory consumption (the majority of today's day-to-day browser-based tasks have been done just fine in 2010 on that era's hardware).

melling 4y ago
Yeah, people have been making the argument about inefficient software for about 4 decades now. I remember a decade ago buying a 16GB Mac Book Pro, and listening to people complain that 8GB wasn’t enough, so I’m not sure what world 4GB was enough. That same 16GB laptop still works great today.
deno 4y ago
What was the resolution a decade ago? Just having the Web in 4K is going to require significantly more memory. And something like Discord is not exactly comparable to an IRC client.
- j5155 4y ago
  A lot of Discord’s memory usage is because it uses Electron/embedded Chromium. I agree that it does a lot more then IRC clients do, but I think it uses a lot more resources and is a lot less snappy then a native app.
guestbest 4y ago
I’m using a M1 and it is very performant with Brave and unlock origin with only 8gb ram and XCode opening in the background. I try to stay away from Discord and Slack on the desktop as years ago they would cause my system to slow down
- Koshkin 4y ago
  > very performant with Brave To add to that, my 8GB "late 2014" Mac Mini is very performant with (the modern) Linux on it. (It was barely usable running a recent MacOS.)
JodieBenitez 4y ago
Actually, my M1 never uses the 16gb (8 at most), even though I have several IDEs running (also browser of course). I'm not sure what generate such memory consumption for some users.
- tracker1 4y ago
  Full stack software development (background servers, database, redis, often under Docker).
- mvanbaak 4y ago
  my M1 with 64GB is pushed to its limits from time to time. Running a couple of vms and database servers for local development takes up a lot of memory. Like always, it depends on your usecase. For some 4GB will be enough, for some it wont.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Running IDEA, a Java backend, a nodejs frontend, a secondary nodejs frontend and a browser with dev tools open has caused my computer to hit 32GiB of RAM usage easily. I didn't decide the tech stack, unfortunately, but this has become a real problem. Personally I think 8GiB should be more than enough for any normal end user though the Electronification is taking a real toll these days. However, this is the M2 Pro, labeled for professionals, and professionals generally need more resources. Capping the machine at 32GiB means I can't even comfortably run my current stack without swapping. I can only imagine what this will do do professional video/photo editing.
criley2 4y ago
"no one needs more than 640k of ram"
- ant6n 4y ago
  Well it seems like for more than a decade, Apple seemed to think that nobody really needed more that 8GB of ram.
  - tromp 4y ago
    Apple offering 16GB is a clear counterexample to that. We can only say that Apple feels 8GB is enough for a significant fraction of users...
    - 13of40 4y ago
      I have a Mac Mini from around 2010 that I saved from the recyclers recently. Dusted it off, put in 8GB of RAM and an SSD, and it booted up Windows 11 just fine. However, as far as I can tell there is no up to date MacOS available for it because Apple considers such a thing too obsolete to support.
      - qwytw 4y ago
        You might be able to install latest macOS using OpenCore-Patcher (it's just bootloader IIRC it does not modify the OS itself in anyway so it should be pretty safe). I've used it on 2011ish 17" mbp and had no issues.
        13of40 4y ago
        Thanks, I'll take a look at that. Next thing I was going to try was host a VM under Linux and see if I could make a "hackintosh" on real Apple hardware.
    - qwytw 4y ago
      I think it's much more related to market segmentation and upselling. If they started shipping 16GB in the base model they'd probably have to price it closer to the current price of the 8GB one than to the 16GB to stay competitive. 8GB is probably enough for most users in most cases currently (not necessarily in a couple of years, which means they'd update earlier) but the cost for adding 8GB would be pretty low for Apple.
friedman23 4y ago
Get ready for AR apps written in react native. The reason we have shitty inefficient software is because Apple, Google, and Microsoft haven't standardized on a performant cross platform framework other than the browser. Don't blame people writing software for not wanting to waste their lives translating the same logic to 3 different platforms and then maintaining 3x the code for the rest of their lives.
- gwt4life 4y ago
  THIS
  - tromp 4y ago
    You're being downvoted because upvoting is the desired alternative to THIS spam...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- qwytw 4y ago
  Electron itself is not really that bad though. Sure there is not insignificant overhead but you can still make fairly resource efficient apps with it if you actually want to (and you can use Tauri if you want to go even further). Also Slack, Discord etc. are not really using React Native (but rather normal web react if they are not using another framework). You don't really need Chromium for React Native which significantly reduces memory footpring (in fact a react native app can be close to indistinguishable from a "normal" native app in most ways). You can probably reduce React Native overhead to not much more than 100-200MB compared to purely native apps which seems reasonable.
  - friedman23 4y ago
    I was just using the original poster's language when I was referring to "shitty inefficient software". I'll say it does bother me that we are standardizing on typescript with react being the default for cross platform development. When I first started using react I loved it compared to what existed at the time, the ease of composing everything and the fact that it just used JS instead of a DSL for templating and it didn't mandate all these cargo-culted framework patterns. But the warts are really starting to show up, writing React today with useEffect hooks everywhere reminds me of writing VHDL in college to simulate an automated train controller and now I'm reaching for things like XState to handle almost all state management (I have a feeling this complexity ends up appearing for all complex UI interactions though). Also we are taking on a type system (which is good) but not seeing any of the performance benefits that could bring. Why is golang more than 100% faster than typescript? Both are statically typed languages but TS doesn't get any compiler optimizations because of the JS baggage. That being said, I'll take JS with React + React Native if it means I can write apps once and ship to all three major platforms. It's exciting that ui frameworks like Tamagui allow for close to 90% code sharing.
simplotek 4y ago
> On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? How would that work? You whine on an online forum over how bloated a software is, and in the process opt to be deprived of it's usage? Or would you continue to complain about bloated software while using it? Because none of those scenarios offer a compelling reason for the software maintainers to rearchitect their whole application. Meanwhile, a 8GB stick of RAM can be bought for what? 40€?
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Way fucking cheaper than 40. Closer to $16 unless you really need DDR5. Even then, it's still around $29/8gb if buying 32gb or more. The issue is that Apple is integrating the RAM in the SoC. Personally, I'm not really a fan of "smart-phonification" of my desktop computers. I get that the mini is in a bit of a weird spot, since it's still got fairly challenging size constraints, but still... not my cup of tea.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    Intel minis have upgradeable memory and their internals took up way more space compared to the (old) m1 mac mini at least.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > The issue is that Apple is integrating the RAM in the SoC Aren't there legitimate technical reasons for including the RAM in the SoC such as better bandwidth?
  - loufe 4y ago
    The integration into the SoC is partially responsible for the amazing performance. The extra travelling distance for a click-in ram stick adds up, in terms of latency, quickly
    - astrange 4y ago
      Memory latency on the M1/M2 is no better than other systems. Other things are better, but not that.
mrstone 4y ago
> On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? I think that war has been lost. Apple should just allow more RAM to be put in.
hgs3 4y ago
> On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? Agreed. Some might say "RAM is cheap" but that line of thinking is why one day 64GB RAM won't be enough for a dozen browser tabs.
yamtaddle 4y ago
A few years back I was given an old 4GB Macbook to use temporarily when I started at a new job. Thing is, I could have kept using it indefinitely for the actual work, for which it didn't feel slow—but Slack (Electron) and Asana (project management... webapp, thing, that liked to eat tons of memory & cycles for no reason, at the time) were must-use tools and just having them open with nothing else brought that poor machine to its knees. Cut out webapps/Electron and it was entirely fine, though. Like if we'd just used XMPP or something instead of Slack I might even have been able to make it work without serious issues
- antifa 4y ago
  I had an employer hand me a macbook with a small HDD (not SSD) with 4GB or 8GB of RAM. It was incredibly slow, especially with slack. It's somewhat symbolic of why I'm glad I don't work there anymore.

melling 4y ago

Yeah, people have been making the argument about inefficient software for about 4 decades now. I remember a decade ago buying a 16GB Mac Book Pro, and listening to people complain that 8GB wasn’t enough, so I’m not sure what world 4GB was enough. That same 16GB laptop still works great today.

deno 4y ago

What was the resolution a decade ago? Just having the Web in 4K is going to require significantly more memory. And something like Discord is not exactly comparable to an IRC client.

j5155 4y ago
A lot of Discord’s memory usage is because it uses Electron/embedded Chromium. I agree that it does a lot more then IRC clients do, but I think it uses a lot more resources and is a lot less snappy then a native app.

guestbest 4y ago

I’m using a M1 and it is very performant with Brave and unlock origin with only 8gb ram and XCode opening in the background. I try to stay away from Discord and Slack on the desktop as years ago they would cause my system to slow down

Koshkin 4y ago
> very performant with Brave To add to that, my 8GB "late 2014" Mac Mini is very performant with (the modern) Linux on it. (It was barely usable running a recent MacOS.)

JodieBenitez 4y ago

Actually, my M1 never uses the 16gb (8 at most), even though I have several IDEs running (also browser of course). I'm not sure what generate such memory consumption for some users.

tracker1 4y ago
Full stack software development (background servers, database, redis, often under Docker).
mvanbaak 4y ago
my M1 with 64GB is pushed to its limits from time to time. Running a couple of vms and database servers for local development takes up a lot of memory. Like always, it depends on your usecase. For some 4GB will be enough, for some it wont.
jeroenhd 4y ago
Running IDEA, a Java backend, a nodejs frontend, a secondary nodejs frontend and a browser with dev tools open has caused my computer to hit 32GiB of RAM usage easily. I didn't decide the tech stack, unfortunately, but this has become a real problem. Personally I think 8GiB should be more than enough for any normal end user though the Electronification is taking a real toll these days. However, this is the M2 Pro, labeled for professionals, and professionals generally need more resources. Capping the machine at 32GiB means I can't even comfortably run my current stack without swapping. I can only imagine what this will do do professional video/photo editing.

criley2 4y ago

"no one needs more than 640k of ram"

ant6n 4y ago
Well it seems like for more than a decade, Apple seemed to think that nobody really needed more that 8GB of ram.
- tromp 4y ago
  Apple offering 16GB is a clear counterexample to that. We can only say that Apple feels 8GB is enough for a significant fraction of users...
  - 13of40 4y ago
    I have a Mac Mini from around 2010 that I saved from the recyclers recently. Dusted it off, put in 8GB of RAM and an SSD, and it booted up Windows 11 just fine. However, as far as I can tell there is no up to date MacOS available for it because Apple considers such a thing too obsolete to support.
    - qwytw 4y ago
      You might be able to install latest macOS using OpenCore-Patcher (it's just bootloader IIRC it does not modify the OS itself in anyway so it should be pretty safe). I've used it on 2011ish 17" mbp and had no issues.
      - 13of40 4y ago
        Thanks, I'll take a look at that. Next thing I was going to try was host a VM under Linux and see if I could make a "hackintosh" on real Apple hardware.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    I think it's much more related to market segmentation and upselling. If they started shipping 16GB in the base model they'd probably have to price it closer to the current price of the 8GB one than to the 16GB to stay competitive. 8GB is probably enough for most users in most cases currently (not necessarily in a couple of years, which means they'd update earlier) but the cost for adding 8GB would be pretty low for Apple.

friedman23 4y ago

Get ready for AR apps written in react native. The reason we have shitty inefficient software is because Apple, Google, and Microsoft haven't standardized on a performant cross platform framework other than the browser. Don't blame people writing software for not wanting to waste their lives translating the same logic to 3 different platforms and then maintaining 3x the code for the rest of their lives.

gwt4life 4y ago
THIS
- tromp 4y ago
  You're being downvoted because upvoting is the desired alternative to THIS spam...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
qwytw 4y ago
Electron itself is not really that bad though. Sure there is not insignificant overhead but you can still make fairly resource efficient apps with it if you actually want to (and you can use Tauri if you want to go even further). Also Slack, Discord etc. are not really using React Native (but rather normal web react if they are not using another framework). You don't really need Chromium for React Native which significantly reduces memory footpring (in fact a react native app can be close to indistinguishable from a "normal" native app in most ways). You can probably reduce React Native overhead to not much more than 100-200MB compared to purely native apps which seems reasonable.
- friedman23 4y ago
  I was just using the original poster's language when I was referring to "shitty inefficient software". I'll say it does bother me that we are standardizing on typescript with react being the default for cross platform development. When I first started using react I loved it compared to what existed at the time, the ease of composing everything and the fact that it just used JS instead of a DSL for templating and it didn't mandate all these cargo-culted framework patterns. But the warts are really starting to show up, writing React today with useEffect hooks everywhere reminds me of writing VHDL in college to simulate an automated train controller and now I'm reaching for things like XState to handle almost all state management (I have a feeling this complexity ends up appearing for all complex UI interactions though). Also we are taking on a type system (which is good) but not seeing any of the performance benefits that could bring. Why is golang more than 100% faster than typescript? Both are statically typed languages but TS doesn't get any compiler optimizations because of the JS baggage. That being said, I'll take JS with React + React Native if it means I can write apps once and ship to all three major platforms. It's exciting that ui frameworks like Tamagui allow for close to 90% code sharing.

simplotek 4y ago

> On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? How would that work? You whine on an online forum over how bloated a software is, and in the process opt to be deprived of it's usage? Or would you continue to complain about bloated software while using it? Because none of those scenarios offer a compelling reason for the software maintainers to rearchitect their whole application. Meanwhile, a 8GB stick of RAM can be bought for what? 40€?

horsawlarway 4y ago
Way fucking cheaper than 40. Closer to $16 unless you really need DDR5. Even then, it's still around $29/8gb if buying 32gb or more. The issue is that Apple is integrating the RAM in the SoC. Personally, I'm not really a fan of "smart-phonification" of my desktop computers. I get that the mini is in a bit of a weird spot, since it's still got fairly challenging size constraints, but still... not my cup of tea.
- qwytw 4y ago
  Intel minis have upgradeable memory and their internals took up way more space compared to the (old) m1 mac mini at least.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > The issue is that Apple is integrating the RAM in the SoC Aren't there legitimate technical reasons for including the RAM in the SoC such as better bandwidth?
- loufe 4y ago
  The integration into the SoC is partially responsible for the amazing performance. The extra travelling distance for a click-in ram stick adds up, in terms of latency, quickly
  - astrange 4y ago
    Memory latency on the M1/M2 is no better than other systems. Other things are better, but not that.

mrstone 4y ago

> On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? I think that war has been lost. Apple should just allow more RAM to be put in.

hgs3 4y ago

> On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? Agreed. Some might say "RAM is cheap" but that line of thinking is why one day 64GB RAM won't be enough for a dozen browser tabs.

yamtaddle 4y ago

A few years back I was given an old 4GB Macbook to use temporarily when I started at a new job. Thing is, I could have kept using it indefinitely for the actual work, for which it didn't feel slow—but Slack (Electron) and Asana (project management... webapp, thing, that liked to eat tons of memory & cycles for no reason, at the time) were must-use tools and just having them open with nothing else brought that poor machine to its knees. Cut out webapps/Electron and it was entirely fine, though. Like if we'd just used XMPP or something instead of Slack I might even have been able to make it work without serious issues

antifa 4y ago
I had an employer hand me a macbook with a small HDD (not SSD) with 4GB or 8GB of RAM. It was incredibly slow, especially with slack. It's somewhat symbolic of why I'm glad I don't work there anymore.