4 ms·

Because developers are lazy, and our employers don't care. There are programs out there that are RAM-efficient. Every single one was written by someone that DO

Because developers are lazy, and our employers don't care. There are programs out there that are RAM-efficient. Every single one was written by someone that DOES care and ISN'T lazy.

zirgs 4y ago
Programmer's time is expensive and RAM is cheap. Unless there are problems with memory leaks that cause the app to crash - programmer's time is better spent elsewhere.
- slotrans 4y ago
  This isn't true when your software runs on thousands or millions of users' machines. It's common for consumer software to use 10, 100, or even 1000 times as much memory as is needed. If that forces every user to buy $200 of extra RAM, it is definitely more costly than developer time. Besides, what else is developer time getting spent on? Take Slack for example. For the past 8 years or so, Slack -- who employs thousands of engineers, mind you -- has spent developer time on two things: 1) breaking the UI for no reason, and 2) reducing memory usage. Only one of those things has benefited me as a user!
- simonblack 4y ago
  Programmer's time is expensive and RAM is cheap. Back when RAM was $25 per KILObyte*, that saying was reversed. "Programmer's time is cheap and RAM is horribly expensive." Especially when there were hard limits to the RAM as in 8-bit computing where the hard limit was 64 kilobytes of contiguous RAM. Programmers used to sweat over saving bits, even, hence the packed-data systems where you might fit (say) 3-bytes of data into two bytes by squeezing out redundant bits. ========= * That doesn't sound particularly expensive till you compare it with today's costs. $25 per KiLObyte = $25,000 per MEGAbyte = $25 MILLION BUCKS per GIGAbyte. Seeing my current computer that I'm writing this on has 32 gigabytes of RAM, that amount of RAM would have cost me Eight Hundred Million (non-inflation-adjusted) Bucks back in 1980. (And I haven't bothered to adjust with the 'kilo' = 1024 factor out of pure laziness)

Because developers are lazy, and our employers don't care. There are programs out there that are RAM-efficient. Every single one was written by someone that DOES care and ISN'T lazy.

zirgs 4y ago

Programmer's time is expensive and RAM is cheap. Unless there are problems with memory leaks that cause the app to crash - programmer's time is better spent elsewhere.

slotrans 4y ago
This isn't true when your software runs on thousands or millions of users' machines. It's common for consumer software to use 10, 100, or even 1000 times as much memory as is needed. If that forces every user to buy $200 of extra RAM, it is definitely more costly than developer time. Besides, what else is developer time getting spent on? Take Slack for example. For the past 8 years or so, Slack -- who employs thousands of engineers, mind you -- has spent developer time on two things: 1) breaking the UI for no reason, and 2) reducing memory usage. Only one of those things has benefited me as a user!
simonblack 4y ago
Programmer's time is expensive and RAM is cheap. Back when RAM was $25 per KILObyte*, that saying was reversed. "Programmer's time is cheap and RAM is horribly expensive." Especially when there were hard limits to the RAM as in 8-bit computing where the hard limit was 64 kilobytes of contiguous RAM. Programmers used to sweat over saving bits, even, hence the packed-data systems where you might fit (say) 3-bytes of data into two bytes by squeezing out redundant bits. ========= * That doesn't sound particularly expensive till you compare it with today's costs. $25 per KiLObyte = $25,000 per MEGAbyte = $25 MILLION BUCKS per GIGAbyte. Seeing my current computer that I'm writing this on has 32 gigabytes of RAM, that amount of RAM would have cost me Eight Hundred Million (non-inflation-adjusted) Bucks back in 1980. (And I haven't bothered to adjust with the 'kilo' = 1024 factor out of pure laziness)