5 ms·

How bloated software can become is limited by available hardware resources. 20-30 years ago typical RAM size / CPU core count where much smaller than nowadays.

How bloated software can become is limited by available hardware resources. 20-30 years ago typical RAM size / CPU core count where much smaller than nowadays. If you run desktop software written 20 years ago on modern hardware it would work much faster than modern desktop software with comparable functions (not always, but quite often). But I'd agree that there was plenty bloated software which run slow on hardware most people afforded at that time. May be this happens because software is typically developed on top of the line hardware but users on average spend less on hardware then developers.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
That reminds me of the old @bruised_blood comic: https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328 https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328
- abakker 4y ago
  its really a perfect continuation of the Mark Twain, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Really succinct fast code probably takes more time than verbose, slow code.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    Brevity is difficult. It takes me a lot longer to write small code, than big code (CTRL-C -> CTRL-V). A big part of my refactoring, is looking for copy/pasta, and trying to do things like refine base classes or protocols, and whatnot.
another_kel 4y ago
> with comparable functions (not always, but quite often). Is that really the case? Are 2010 skype and 2022 discord comparable in terms of functionality? Are 2000 winamp and 2022 spotify app comparable? Todo app 15 years ago was a simple CRUD app. Today todo app has to do CRUD, sync, offline mode, public API, integrations with popular services, collaborative projects and support 6 platforms. People whine about bloated web tech in app, and how good it was with native while forgetting that availability and feature parity on all platforms is a feature too. I still remember how bad it was before electron as a windows user. Half the apps that seemed cool(omnifocus, bear notes) had mac only desktop version, other(1password, evernote) had a native windows version that felt ugly and unpolished.
- yobbo 4y ago
  Yes, they are all equivalent. There are variations in specific features but it should be obvious how irrelevant that is. The present day "apps" you describe are bloated because they bundle an entire web browser and more, maybe the equivalent of a container, to run the little sliver of JS/html that presents the UI to the user. The reason they are bundled like this is to enable web developers to work on them.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
  Frankly, I don't see much difference in functionality between 1996 ICQ and 2023 Whatsapp or Telegram. Why people keep reinventing the wheel?
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > Todo app 15 years ago was a simple CRUD app. Today todo app has to do CRUD, sync, offline mode, public API, integrations with popular services, collaborative projects and support 6 platforms. Sync was done in many ways, thanks to the app using actual files to store information. It wasn't a concern of the app itself - nor it should be. Off-line mode was the default. Public API wasn't needed. Collaborative projects is something nobody asks for in a Todo app, and of course, portability gets much easier when you have much less code to port. Still, I could imagine apps back then having all those online and multiplayer features[0]. But even then, this doesn't add up to modern bloat. APIs, collaborative editing, sync, integrations - these aren't compute-heavy or real-time features, they shouldn't cause a big performance impact. That is, unless you're doing something stupid, like blocking on network requests, keeping state on a server, or just constantly parsing and serializing JSON (or XML). > Are 2000 winamp and 2022 spotify app comparable? Yes. WinAMP reigns supreme. Spotify app is hot, bloated garbage and has only a small fraction of features WinAMP offered. The entire value of Spotify is in their service part - but music streaming existed in 2000. You probably could make WinAMP stream from Spotify if you tried hard enough. I hope someone does and uses this to demonstrate what should be obvious: there's no technial justification for Spotify being so heavy, so feature-less and so bad UI/UX-wise. -- [0] - They didn't have them, because most of those features only became useful once smartphones and mobile connectivity took off in the earnest.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

That reminds me of the old @bruised_blood comic: https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328 https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/926458505355235328

abakker 4y ago
its really a perfect continuation of the Mark Twain, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” Really succinct fast code probably takes more time than verbose, slow code.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Brevity is difficult. It takes me a lot longer to write small code, than big code (CTRL-C -> CTRL-V). A big part of my refactoring, is looking for copy/pasta, and trying to do things like refine base classes or protocols, and whatnot.

another_kel 4y ago

> with comparable functions (not always, but quite often). Is that really the case? Are 2010 skype and 2022 discord comparable in terms of functionality? Are 2000 winamp and 2022 spotify app comparable? Todo app 15 years ago was a simple CRUD app. Today todo app has to do CRUD, sync, offline mode, public API, integrations with popular services, collaborative projects and support 6 platforms. People whine about bloated web tech in app, and how good it was with native while forgetting that availability and feature parity on all platforms is a feature too. I still remember how bad it was before electron as a windows user. Half the apps that seemed cool(omnifocus, bear notes) had mac only desktop version, other(1password, evernote) had a native windows version that felt ugly and unpolished.

yobbo 4y ago
Yes, they are all equivalent. There are variations in specific features but it should be obvious how irrelevant that is. The present day "apps" you describe are bloated because they bundle an entire web browser and more, maybe the equivalent of a container, to run the little sliver of JS/html that presents the UI to the user. The reason they are bundled like this is to enable web developers to work on them.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
Frankly, I don't see much difference in functionality between 1996 ICQ and 2023 Whatsapp or Telegram. Why people keep reinventing the wheel?
TeMPOraL 4y ago
> Todo app 15 years ago was a simple CRUD app. Today todo app has to do CRUD, sync, offline mode, public API, integrations with popular services, collaborative projects and support 6 platforms. Sync was done in many ways, thanks to the app using actual files to store information. It wasn't a concern of the app itself - nor it should be. Off-line mode was the default. Public API wasn't needed. Collaborative projects is something nobody asks for in a Todo app, and of course, portability gets much easier when you have much less code to port. Still, I could imagine apps back then having all those online and multiplayer features[0]. But even then, this doesn't add up to modern bloat. APIs, collaborative editing, sync, integrations - these aren't compute-heavy or real-time features, they shouldn't cause a big performance impact. That is, unless you're doing something stupid, like blocking on network requests, keeping state on a server, or just constantly parsing and serializing JSON (or XML). > Are 2000 winamp and 2022 spotify app comparable? Yes. WinAMP reigns supreme. Spotify app is hot, bloated garbage and has only a small fraction of features WinAMP offered. The entire value of Spotify is in their service part - but music streaming existed in 2000. You probably could make WinAMP stream from Spotify if you tried hard enough. I hope someone does and uses this to demonstrate what should be obvious: there's no technial justification for Spotify being so heavy, so feature-less and so bad UI/UX-wise. -- [0] - They didn't have them, because most of those features only became useful once smartphones and mobile connectivity took off in the earnest.