4 ms·

> I think that new software bloat far outweighs the benefits brought in by new hardware as well. While software bloat is undeniably a problem, in my experience

> I think that new software bloat far outweighs the benefits brought in by new hardware as well. While software bloat is undeniably a problem, in my experience it's not that clear-cut. E.g., a messanger app built on Elector is a pure bloat. At least, from technical perspective -- maybe Electron brings in business value that outweighs the technical downsides. But an IDE from around 2005 is nothing more than a dumb notepad in comparison to a modern JetBrains IDE. Even though I often find their IDEs extremely frustrating in terms of consumed computational resources, I'd rather upgrade my hardware than go back to something less "smart". After all, hardware is just a means to an end of solving whatever task at hand.

vkaku 3y ago
An IDE from even 2001 isn't as dumb as you would think at all. In fact, I was one of those early adopters of Websphere Application Studio (Eclipse) and I thought it was bloated. 20 years later, it's the same argument, same stack (Java). Cut to 20 years from now, you may remember JetBrains as the best thing you had worked on - and that some other JavaScript IDE in 2043, which requires a bare minimum 128GB of RAM to run - will be the means to that end for those developers. See you in 20 years. :-)
pjmlp 3y ago
Eclipse from 2005 was already great, and better than most languages support out there. As was Netbeans in 2005, or Delphi, VB, Visual Studio,.... JetBrains gets too much praise.
- sn_master 3y ago
  Visual Studio 6 (1998) is an unappreciated piece of art for what it was back in the day and even by today's standards.
  - myk9001 3y ago
    I'd respectfully disagree on VS 6. It was OK for its time, but hardly a piece of art, in my experience. Please excuse me copying the relevant portion from my other comment. VS 6's support of C++ back in 2005 wasn't that great, at leat the way I remember it now. Code navigation was very primitive, and you were lucky if it didn't consider the code too complex to offer any navigation around it at all. Its built-in debugger often wouldn't let you inspect a string's content because it was just another pointer from the debugger's perspective. And there was a bug, where the editor would slow down so much it would be littery unusable -- e.g., it'd take a couple seconds to react to a key stroke. The reason was it kept a file with the workspace's (solution in today's terms) code metadata and that file grew too big over time. So you had to remember to delete it regularly. But VS 6 had a great plugin -- Visual Tomato, if memory serves -- that made things so much better in terms of code navigation/refactoring/etc.
    - sn_master 3y ago
      Compared to modern IDEs it won't do very well, but do you remember better alternatives back then, at least if you wanted a "friendly" UI instead of a command line one? Would you choose something different if you go back to 2005? how about 1998?
      - myk9001 3y ago
        Oh, back at the time it was a good. IDE. There was also C++ Builder, but it had its own quirks, of course. Picking one of them was, I guess, a matter of personal preference, the project's requirements, etc. Anyway, I sure see how my comment may sound that way, but I didn't really mean to contrast JB vs others. Comparing a modern IDE to its old version in the context of software bloat is the whole point I'm trying to make. I think bloat is not the only reason for increased hw requirements. Modern software is often way more capable than its old versions and adding capabilities seems like a good use of added hw power.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      It was great for the context of 1990's IDEs, and most people would use plugins anyway. Visual Assist being a well known one. It isn't as if JetBrains products aren't full of plugins as well.
      - myk9001 3y ago
        Yes, Visual Assist is the name, thank you. I see how my comment may sound that way, but I didn't really mean to contrast JB vs others. A better idea woud've been comparing a modern version of VS with VS 6, for example. Anyway, my point is bloat is not the only reason for increased hw requirements. Modern software is often way more capable than the old and adding capabilities seems like a good use of added hw power. This is a bit similar to the concept of accidental vs inherent complexity in sw engineering. There's accidental bloat and inherent "bloat", so to speak:) My impression is people don't usually acknowledge the existence of inherent "bloat" in discussions like this one.
- myk9001 3y ago
  Can't comment on Java support in Eclipse back then. VS 6's support of C++ back in 2005 wasn't that great, at leat the way I remember it now. Code navigation was very primitive, and you were lucky if it didn't consider the code too complex to offer any navigation around it at all. Its built-in debugger often wouldn't let you inspect a string's content because it was just another pointer from the debugger's perspective. But VS 6 had a great plugin -- Visual Tomato, if memory serves -- that made things so much better in terms of code navigation/refactoring/etc. Writing C++ in Eclipse CDT or KDevelop was simply a pain. Actually, a plain editor with syntax highlight was probably a better option because it was not even pretending to have "smart" features that would inevitably break on each non-trivial piece of code -- better no promises than false promises. Delphi, and C++ Builder for that matter, were great as a package: fast GUI builder, editor, debugger, etc. That said, I don't remember them offering much in terms of working with code: finding an identifier usages, refactoring, etc. As to praising JB, it wasn't my intent to single them out, surely there're other great IDEs. Their products is just something I'm personally familiar with. If something better happens to cross my way, I'll have no problems switching.
  - Narishma 3y ago
    VS 6 is from 1998, not 2005.
    - myk9001 3y ago
      Point taken. Didn't mean to say its release date is 2005, but that's definitely not obvious from my comment. It was still mainstream in 2005, I think. Do you remember if I get that right? At least we were using it at work in 2005. VS release cadence is much faster nowadays, isn't it? :)
      - Narishma 3y ago
        There were 2 releases between VS6 and VS2005, so slightly slower than the current cadence of a new release every couple of years but not by much. I think VS6 remained popular for a long time because it was the last release before they switched to the heavier .NET-based IDE.
lelanthran 3y ago
> But an IDE from around 2005 is nothing more than a dumb notepad in comparison to a modern JetBrains IDE. Which IDE is this? I've used IDEs from the mid 90s (Watcom C/C++, Visual Studio 5.5, Delphi, C++ Builder) and from 2005, and they did a lot more than just let you edit code and run make. In 2005, all major IDEs had autocomplete, for example. They also had jump to definition, jump to help (remember help pages? .chm files?), syntax highlighting, source-level debugging, inline with the source code ... I mean, what exactly do you think they are missing that makes them a rudimentary text editing tool?
- myk9001 3y ago
  That's a good question. Admittedly, my original comment is informed by the general impressions IDEs gave me back then and now, so I'll try to be more specific this time. Of course, I haven't used every existing IDE from mid 90s, so some of them might actually have had these features. If you're aware of any, I'm curious to hear about them. # Syntax highlight Something seemingly as basic as syntax highlighting can be implemented based on syntactic or semantic analysis of the code. There's even a more primitive way of implementing it, where an editor would just highlight the language's keyword and not much else. If memory serves, back at the time, most editors and IDEs would do the latter -- just highlight the keywords and be done with it. Nowadays, semantic highlight is usually the default. Each identifier gets colored with the color of the symbol it resolves to. A constant name is rendered as constant throughout the file, not just in its declaration. Same applies for parameter, property, class, function names and so on. # Semantic "grep" As in, find all usages of, for example, a function across the project: - If the function is passed as an argument somewhere (to be invoked as a callback later) this is going to be included in the search results. - If another class has a function with the same name, this isn't going to end up in the search results. - If the function is overloaded, it's possible to search for usages of a specific overload or all of them. - And so on. I don't remember this being a thing in old IDEs either at all or it didn't work for anything but the most trivial code. Although software like GNU Global did aim to implement this functionality, my memory is it was very limited in practice. # Semantic code completion While IDEs from mid 90s did have code completion, a modern IDE improves on that too. E.g., if you invoke auto-completion while writing a bit of code that passes an argument to a function, a modern IDE is able to form a list of suggestions containing only symbols that are currently in scope and match the function's parameter type. # Refactoring I think this goes without explanation, would you agree? Modern IDEs offer more refactorings, theses refactorings are way more complex and work much more reliably. # Dependencies source code browsing/decompilation Editing to add in this one. How could I forget? Basically, if I want to go to the definition of a symbol that comes from a library, the IDE will either download the source code if available or decompile the binary and and take me to the definition. To me personally, this is huge.

vkaku 3y ago

An IDE from even 2001 isn't as dumb as you would think at all. In fact, I was one of those early adopters of Websphere Application Studio (Eclipse) and I thought it was bloated. 20 years later, it's the same argument, same stack (Java). Cut to 20 years from now, you may remember JetBrains as the best thing you had worked on - and that some other JavaScript IDE in 2043, which requires a bare minimum 128GB of RAM to run - will be the means to that end for those developers. See you in 20 years. :-)

pjmlp 3y ago

Eclipse from 2005 was already great, and better than most languages support out there. As was Netbeans in 2005, or Delphi, VB, Visual Studio,.... JetBrains gets too much praise.

sn_master 3y ago
Visual Studio 6 (1998) is an unappreciated piece of art for what it was back in the day and even by today's standards.
- myk9001 3y ago
  I'd respectfully disagree on VS 6. It was OK for its time, but hardly a piece of art, in my experience. Please excuse me copying the relevant portion from my other comment. VS 6's support of C++ back in 2005 wasn't that great, at leat the way I remember it now. Code navigation was very primitive, and you were lucky if it didn't consider the code too complex to offer any navigation around it at all. Its built-in debugger often wouldn't let you inspect a string's content because it was just another pointer from the debugger's perspective. And there was a bug, where the editor would slow down so much it would be littery unusable -- e.g., it'd take a couple seconds to react to a key stroke. The reason was it kept a file with the workspace's (solution in today's terms) code metadata and that file grew too big over time. So you had to remember to delete it regularly. But VS 6 had a great plugin -- Visual Tomato, if memory serves -- that made things so much better in terms of code navigation/refactoring/etc.
  - sn_master 3y ago
    Compared to modern IDEs it won't do very well, but do you remember better alternatives back then, at least if you wanted a "friendly" UI instead of a command line one? Would you choose something different if you go back to 2005? how about 1998?
    - myk9001 3y ago
      Oh, back at the time it was a good. IDE. There was also C++ Builder, but it had its own quirks, of course. Picking one of them was, I guess, a matter of personal preference, the project's requirements, etc. Anyway, I sure see how my comment may sound that way, but I didn't really mean to contrast JB vs others. Comparing a modern IDE to its old version in the context of software bloat is the whole point I'm trying to make. I think bloat is not the only reason for increased hw requirements. Modern software is often way more capable than its old versions and adding capabilities seems like a good use of added hw power.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It was great for the context of 1990's IDEs, and most people would use plugins anyway. Visual Assist being a well known one. It isn't as if JetBrains products aren't full of plugins as well.
    - myk9001 3y ago
      Yes, Visual Assist is the name, thank you. I see how my comment may sound that way, but I didn't really mean to contrast JB vs others. A better idea woud've been comparing a modern version of VS with VS 6, for example. Anyway, my point is bloat is not the only reason for increased hw requirements. Modern software is often way more capable than the old and adding capabilities seems like a good use of added hw power. This is a bit similar to the concept of accidental vs inherent complexity in sw engineering. There's accidental bloat and inherent "bloat", so to speak:) My impression is people don't usually acknowledge the existence of inherent "bloat" in discussions like this one.
myk9001 3y ago
Can't comment on Java support in Eclipse back then. VS 6's support of C++ back in 2005 wasn't that great, at leat the way I remember it now. Code navigation was very primitive, and you were lucky if it didn't consider the code too complex to offer any navigation around it at all. Its built-in debugger often wouldn't let you inspect a string's content because it was just another pointer from the debugger's perspective. But VS 6 had a great plugin -- Visual Tomato, if memory serves -- that made things so much better in terms of code navigation/refactoring/etc. Writing C++ in Eclipse CDT or KDevelop was simply a pain. Actually, a plain editor with syntax highlight was probably a better option because it was not even pretending to have "smart" features that would inevitably break on each non-trivial piece of code -- better no promises than false promises. Delphi, and C++ Builder for that matter, were great as a package: fast GUI builder, editor, debugger, etc. That said, I don't remember them offering much in terms of working with code: finding an identifier usages, refactoring, etc. As to praising JB, it wasn't my intent to single them out, surely there're other great IDEs. Their products is just something I'm personally familiar with. If something better happens to cross my way, I'll have no problems switching.
- Narishma 3y ago
  VS 6 is from 1998, not 2005.
  - myk9001 3y ago
    Point taken. Didn't mean to say its release date is 2005, but that's definitely not obvious from my comment. It was still mainstream in 2005, I think. Do you remember if I get that right? At least we were using it at work in 2005. VS release cadence is much faster nowadays, isn't it? :)
    - Narishma 3y ago
      There were 2 releases between VS6 and VS2005, so slightly slower than the current cadence of a new release every couple of years but not by much. I think VS6 remained popular for a long time because it was the last release before they switched to the heavier .NET-based IDE.

lelanthran 3y ago

> But an IDE from around 2005 is nothing more than a dumb notepad in comparison to a modern JetBrains IDE. Which IDE is this? I've used IDEs from the mid 90s (Watcom C/C++, Visual Studio 5.5, Delphi, C++ Builder) and from 2005, and they did a lot more than just let you edit code and run make. In 2005, all major IDEs had autocomplete, for example. They also had jump to definition, jump to help (remember help pages? .chm files?), syntax highlighting, source-level debugging, inline with the source code ... I mean, what exactly do you think they are missing that makes them a rudimentary text editing tool?

myk9001 3y ago
That's a good question. Admittedly, my original comment is informed by the general impressions IDEs gave me back then and now, so I'll try to be more specific this time. Of course, I haven't used every existing IDE from mid 90s, so some of them might actually have had these features. If you're aware of any, I'm curious to hear about them. # Syntax highlight Something seemingly as basic as syntax highlighting can be implemented based on syntactic or semantic analysis of the code. There's even a more primitive way of implementing it, where an editor would just highlight the language's keyword and not much else. If memory serves, back at the time, most editors and IDEs would do the latter -- just highlight the keywords and be done with it. Nowadays, semantic highlight is usually the default. Each identifier gets colored with the color of the symbol it resolves to. A constant name is rendered as constant throughout the file, not just in its declaration. Same applies for parameter, property, class, function names and so on. # Semantic "grep" As in, find all usages of, for example, a function across the project: - If the function is passed as an argument somewhere (to be invoked as a callback later) this is going to be included in the search results. - If another class has a function with the same name, this isn't going to end up in the search results. - If the function is overloaded, it's possible to search for usages of a specific overload or all of them. - And so on. I don't remember this being a thing in old IDEs either at all or it didn't work for anything but the most trivial code. Although software like GNU Global did aim to implement this functionality, my memory is it was very limited in practice. # Semantic code completion While IDEs from mid 90s did have code completion, a modern IDE improves on that too. E.g., if you invoke auto-completion while writing a bit of code that passes an argument to a function, a modern IDE is able to form a list of suggestions containing only symbols that are currently in scope and match the function's parameter type. # Refactoring I think this goes without explanation, would you agree? Modern IDEs offer more refactorings, theses refactorings are way more complex and work much more reliably. # Dependencies source code browsing/decompilation Editing to add in this one. How could I forget? Basically, if I want to go to the definition of a symbol that comes from a library, the IDE will either download the source code if available or decompile the binary and and take me to the definition. To me personally, this is huge.