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That's why he doesn't like Rust is so big on C and Go. I don't buy into this mentality. It's just wasting time. Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on

That's why he doesn't like Rust is so big on C and Go. I don't buy into this mentality. It's just wasting time. Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software (like websites full of tracking and heavy UI design) due to economical reasons (no benefit in optimizing user perf for the company) and not due to system software like one Drew writes. It's just kind of a LARP of "old school" and "minimalistic", which is fine. Just let's not pretend there's some practical benefit.

blueflow 4y ago
How many % of the worlds population doesn't have the means to acquire modern hardware?
- thunderbong 4y ago
  Most of them might not be creators though, just users of said software.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Developers should be using hardware comparable to what their intended audience uses, at least some of the time. It's hard to effectively address the needs of your audience if you aren't experiencing their problems.
    - Jtsummers 4y ago
      I have to disagree, devs should use hardware appropriate to their development environment. They should test on hardware appropriate to their target environment (or at least a simulated version of it). Insisting on developing on underpowered systems can block you from using some more useful development tooling like many profilers and some debuggers effectively or even entirely. You need to know that it works in the target environment, but if the target environment is a 2005-era CPU because the customer wants a "ruggedized" laptop (aka, overpriced old hardware in a very tough case), there's no reason to restrict your devs to one core and 4GB of RAM for their development tools.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        That's why I said "at least some of the time".
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Creators in poorer countries also aren't swimming in money.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
<< It's just kind of a LARP of "old school" and "minimalistic", which is fine. Just let's not pretend there's some practical benefit. Hmm. Like with most things, there are benefits and drawbacks to this approach, but outright dismissal as 'LARP' is, at best, uncharitable. Are you sure you cannot come up with at least one good practical reason?
- globalreset 4y ago
  I'm not dismissing it. Doing stuff certain way because it makes them fun for you is OK. Myself I'm not far from Drew with my dotfiles, doing everything in CLI and being a die-hard Vimer. And I love embedded, low-powered devices too. But I'm not going to pretend there's some big practical reason to do things this way. My VSCode-using mouse-clicking friends are as productive as I am, and produce similar software. The idea that using underpowered computer makes you write some faster or better software etc. is just silly. Especially that all the really fast and well known projects in last few years tend to come from Rust people, with their super heavy compiler that has no respect for RAM and storage usage. It's by definition always better to have a faster box than slower one. You want to see how it works on much slower boxes? Run it with a CPU quota or in a VM. People don't do it, not because they can't, or because they have too fast computers, but because they have other priorities.
  - LeFantome 4y ago
    I did not take his point to be that low powered hardware was superior. Rather, he states that older hardware is fine and good enough. That has been my experience as well. You state something similar above.
    - globalreset 4y ago
      Having no hardware at all is also fine and good enough if you make it so and are willing to go without possibilities it gives you, duh.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    << The idea that using underpowered computer makes you write some faster or better software etc. is just silly. I will admit that I would rather someone with more experience commented on this rather than me. That said, I disagree on general principle. When you are restrained ( sometimes severely restrained ) by the environment, the net result is that you use resources a lot more efficiently. I absolutely get that we are kinda spoiled now with crazy hardware that is basically a supercomputer from not so long ago and it is hard to let that convenience and power go, but that lends to the bloated software landscape we have today that manages to overuse just about every resource available. With limited power, you are effectively forced to write better. It is not completely unlike training with weights. It is not silly. It produces real results.
alexvoda 4y ago
Note however that (due to Intel's complacence, AMD's inability to compete in the construction vehicle series of chips era, crossing several good-enough performance lines, upgradability and the general slowing of Moore's law at least for CPUs) using a 2012 CPU in 2022 is far more viable than using a 2002 CPU in 2012. In 2022 a Sandy Bridge (2012) computer is still a viable computer and viable for the foreseeable future. In 2012, a late Pentium III/early Pentium 4 was not yet an antique but already severely outdated.
- reisse 4y ago
  I'd argue that's a myth. If you use peripherals from 2012, and do simple office tasks, maybe. Try watching 4K (or FHD 50 fps) video on a 4K display on Sandy Bridge with a GPU from that era. Try editing iPhone video and raw photos. Even compiling Linux is order of magnitude faster, because of 20 faster threads instead of 4.
  - doublepg23 4y ago
    I agree. I/O has improved substantially and AMD _isnt_ uncompetitive anymore. It’s kind of wild watching the CPU space change every six months or so.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    Speaking as someone who did have a computer from 10 years ago as the main computer until a year ago, no, it's very realistic. At no point did I come across a game that was "my computer isn't powerful enough to play this game." Even compiling large projects is less helpful than you'd think: a clobber build is still context-switch-while-it-finishes, and incremental builds usually don't build enough for all of the extra threads to be worth it. Sure, maybe my computer might have screamed at me if I tried to watch AV1 or H.265 4K video, but... my computer is 10 years old and so is my monitor, so I don't have a 4K monitor. And, quite frankly, I don't see the point upgrading from 1080 to 4K.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Try editing iPhone footage on a modern CPU with a chunky GPU, I dare you. It saves footage in a very inefficient format which is horrible to edit with, so it'll be slow and clunky on anything.
asddubs 4y ago
I've discovered missing indexes in databases before by running a query on a crappy local machine, which the much beefier server ran just fine.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> It's just wasting time. Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software (like websites full of tracking and heavy UI design) due to economical reasons (no benefit in optimizing user perf for the company) and not due to system software like one Drew writes. And if system software developers believed that line of reasoning, then that would be slow as well, and if the commercial application vendors gave half as much attention and effort then those wouldn't be so bloated and awful.
badsectoracula 4y ago
> It's just wasting time. How is it wasting time? > Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software [..] due to economical reasons The article mentions KDE which i wouldn't categorize as commercial software.
humanrebar 4y ago
> That's why he doesn't like Rust is so big on C and Go. ...so? I don't understand why I should begrudge his preferences.
Karellen 4y ago
I thought Rust was pretty comparable with C with regards to how close its abstractions are to typical CPUs?
- euclaise 4y ago
  I think they're talking about compilation speed
throwawaycr4zy 4y ago
Did we read the same article/post? I saw no mention of Rust, C, or Go anywhere.
akira2501 4y ago
> Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software (like websites full of tracking and heavy UI design) due to economical reasons (no benefit in optimizing user perf for the company) and not due to system software like one Drew writes. Did you not read the article? He makes a direct comparison between two window managers and the different levels of performance they provide. The system software obviously matters. Moreover, there's huge benefits to optimizing the performance, even from a corporate perspective. There's just often not many market driven reasons to do so, and so many companies are willfully blind to this truth. So, you assertion seems to boil down to "everyone else does it in a crappy way because they are ignorant, so you should too, to avoid 'wasting time'." It's a bizarre take.
pjmlp 4y ago
Given OCaml, Delphi, F#, Ada,... examples. There is room to improvement in regards to Rust's compilation speed. That they rather spend resources in other areas deemed more critical is another matter. However I must admit, it has improved a lot on my humble 1215B netbook from 2009.

blueflow 4y ago

How many % of the worlds population doesn't have the means to acquire modern hardware?

thunderbong 4y ago
Most of them might not be creators though, just users of said software.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Developers should be using hardware comparable to what their intended audience uses, at least some of the time. It's hard to effectively address the needs of your audience if you aren't experiencing their problems.
  - Jtsummers 4y ago
    I have to disagree, devs should use hardware appropriate to their development environment. They should test on hardware appropriate to their target environment (or at least a simulated version of it). Insisting on developing on underpowered systems can block you from using some more useful development tooling like many profilers and some debuggers effectively or even entirely. You need to know that it works in the target environment, but if the target environment is a 2005-era CPU because the customer wants a "ruggedized" laptop (aka, overpriced old hardware in a very tough case), there's no reason to restrict your devs to one core and 4GB of RAM for their development tools.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      That's why I said "at least some of the time".
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Creators in poorer countries also aren't swimming in money.

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago

<< It's just kind of a LARP of "old school" and "minimalistic", which is fine. Just let's not pretend there's some practical benefit. Hmm. Like with most things, there are benefits and drawbacks to this approach, but outright dismissal as 'LARP' is, at best, uncharitable. Are you sure you cannot come up with at least one good practical reason?

globalreset 4y ago
I'm not dismissing it. Doing stuff certain way because it makes them fun for you is OK. Myself I'm not far from Drew with my dotfiles, doing everything in CLI and being a die-hard Vimer. And I love embedded, low-powered devices too. But I'm not going to pretend there's some big practical reason to do things this way. My VSCode-using mouse-clicking friends are as productive as I am, and produce similar software. The idea that using underpowered computer makes you write some faster or better software etc. is just silly. Especially that all the really fast and well known projects in last few years tend to come from Rust people, with their super heavy compiler that has no respect for RAM and storage usage. It's by definition always better to have a faster box than slower one. You want to see how it works on much slower boxes? Run it with a CPU quota or in a VM. People don't do it, not because they can't, or because they have too fast computers, but because they have other priorities.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  I did not take his point to be that low powered hardware was superior. Rather, he states that older hardware is fine and good enough. That has been my experience as well. You state something similar above.
  - globalreset 4y ago
    Having no hardware at all is also fine and good enough if you make it so and are willing to go without possibilities it gives you, duh.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  << The idea that using underpowered computer makes you write some faster or better software etc. is just silly. I will admit that I would rather someone with more experience commented on this rather than me. That said, I disagree on general principle. When you are restrained ( sometimes severely restrained ) by the environment, the net result is that you use resources a lot more efficiently. I absolutely get that we are kinda spoiled now with crazy hardware that is basically a supercomputer from not so long ago and it is hard to let that convenience and power go, but that lends to the bloated software landscape we have today that manages to overuse just about every resource available. With limited power, you are effectively forced to write better. It is not completely unlike training with weights. It is not silly. It produces real results.

alexvoda 4y ago

Note however that (due to Intel's complacence, AMD's inability to compete in the construction vehicle series of chips era, crossing several good-enough performance lines, upgradability and the general slowing of Moore's law at least for CPUs) using a 2012 CPU in 2022 is far more viable than using a 2002 CPU in 2012. In 2022 a Sandy Bridge (2012) computer is still a viable computer and viable for the foreseeable future. In 2012, a late Pentium III/early Pentium 4 was not yet an antique but already severely outdated.

reisse 4y ago
I'd argue that's a myth. If you use peripherals from 2012, and do simple office tasks, maybe. Try watching 4K (or FHD 50 fps) video on a 4K display on Sandy Bridge with a GPU from that era. Try editing iPhone video and raw photos. Even compiling Linux is order of magnitude faster, because of 20 faster threads instead of 4.
- doublepg23 4y ago
  I agree. I/O has improved substantially and AMD _isnt_ uncompetitive anymore. It’s kind of wild watching the CPU space change every six months or so.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  Speaking as someone who did have a computer from 10 years ago as the main computer until a year ago, no, it's very realistic. At no point did I come across a game that was "my computer isn't powerful enough to play this game." Even compiling large projects is less helpful than you'd think: a clobber build is still context-switch-while-it-finishes, and incremental builds usually don't build enough for all of the extra threads to be worth it. Sure, maybe my computer might have screamed at me if I tried to watch AV1 or H.265 4K video, but... my computer is 10 years old and so is my monitor, so I don't have a 4K monitor. And, quite frankly, I don't see the point upgrading from 1080 to 4K.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Try editing iPhone footage on a modern CPU with a chunky GPU, I dare you. It saves footage in a very inefficient format which is horrible to edit with, so it'll be slow and clunky on anything.

asddubs 4y ago

I've discovered missing indexes in databases before by running a query on a crappy local machine, which the much beefier server ran just fine.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

> It's just wasting time. Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software (like websites full of tracking and heavy UI design) due to economical reasons (no benefit in optimizing user perf for the company) and not due to system software like one Drew writes. And if system software developers believed that line of reasoning, then that would be slow as well, and if the commercial application vendors gave half as much attention and effort then those wouldn't be so bloated and awful.

badsectoracula 4y ago

> It's just wasting time. How is it wasting time? > Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software [..] due to economical reasons The article mentions KDE which i wouldn't categorize as commercial software.

humanrebar 4y ago

> That's why he doesn't like Rust is so big on C and Go. ...so? I don't understand why I should begrudge his preferences.

Karellen 4y ago

I thought Rust was pretty comparable with C with regards to how close its abstractions are to typical CPUs?

euclaise 4y ago
I think they're talking about compilation speed

throwawaycr4zy 4y ago

Did we read the same article/post? I saw no mention of Rust, C, or Go anywhere.

akira2501 4y ago

> Your user suffers due to bloat and slowness on commercial software (like websites full of tracking and heavy UI design) due to economical reasons (no benefit in optimizing user perf for the company) and not due to system software like one Drew writes. Did you not read the article? He makes a direct comparison between two window managers and the different levels of performance they provide. The system software obviously matters. Moreover, there's huge benefits to optimizing the performance, even from a corporate perspective. There's just often not many market driven reasons to do so, and so many companies are willfully blind to this truth. So, you assertion seems to boil down to "everyone else does it in a crappy way because they are ignorant, so you should too, to avoid 'wasting time'." It's a bizarre take.

pjmlp 4y ago

Given OCaml, Delphi, F#, Ada,... examples. There is room to improvement in regards to Rust's compilation speed. That they rather spend resources in other areas deemed more critical is another matter. However I must admit, it has improved a lot on my humble 1215B netbook from 2009.