5 ms·

Everything has a cost. In the cases where the computing cost or degraded user experience is high enough efficiency is optimized for (see ML models for example).

Everything has a cost. In the cases where the computing cost or degraded user experience is high enough efficiency is optimized for (see ML models for example). In other cases it's not because the end user doesn't actually want that at the cost of fewer features. Cars used to be gas guzzlers until fuel costs and environmental concerns caused customers to want something different. A lot of engineers forget that they are in fact paid to build a product for customers. edit: It also seems OP has never had to wait for older Windows or Linux machines to fully boot. Modern versions boot much faster because customers wanted that. Phones are on 24/7 so customers don't care if it takes longer to boot once every few months.

mgoetzke 3y ago
It took us literally minutes to boot WordPerfect on our school PCs
- flohofwoe 3y ago
  That's why software often came on ROM cartridges for home computers. Floppy disks and cassette tapes were just a cheap compromise.
- notpachet 3y ago
  Yeah, when reading the part about slow boot times, I was thinking about back when we still had to boot from floppy...
- mike_hearn 3y ago
  That's nothing. I remember when booting a game required loading it from cassette tape. Me and my friends would go round to each other's houses, start the computer loading a game, go outside to play a football match and when we got back it'd be nearly ready to start.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    I mean, there's booting, and then there's loading a program... My Commodore 64 from the early 80s booted to a full BASIC REPL in around 1 second. Yes, loading from removable media was slow, but the computer was ready to fully use in less time than it takes "modern" systems to even POST. Totally ridiculous.
Pannoniae 3y ago
Boot times are still atrocious, especially on newer AM5/DDR5 systems. My BIOS takes like 20 seconds to POST, and that's apparently normal. (then ~10 seconds for the OS to boot)
- Kuinox 3y ago
  Your motherboard may be doing a full RAM check on every POST. There are often option in the bios to disable that.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    DDR5 ram has bandwidth of 32,000–64,000 MB/s[1]. Why does it take 20s to check it unless you have a monstrous amount? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR5_SDRAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR5_SDRAM
    - Kuinox 3y ago
      I don't know where the POST code is run, maybe not the CPU ? Also, i'd imagine this sort of code to not parallelise the checks because it try very hard to be bug-free, so we are looking at a piece of code scanning the whole RAM linearly, I don't think you reach anything near the max bandwith of your stick of RAM in this scenario. The problem here is that it does that at every boot, it should do it once, you maybe have disable fast-boot options or equivalent in the bios ?
- l0b0 3y ago
  A huge amount of boot time seems to be because BIOS waits several seconds(!) by default for various hardware to get into a stable state after powering up.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Since when customers have any meaningful choice or way to express preferences? It's long been a supply-driven market: vendors make what they want, customers buy what's being put on the market.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  I feel like it's gotten even worse with pervasive telemetry and A/B testing. Now customers get more of what they "engage" with even if that's not what they want.
- marcinzm 3y ago
  >Since when customers have any meaningful choice or way to express preferences? It's long been a supply-driven market: vendors make what they want, customers buy what's being put on the market. By your logic Tesla and Apple shouldn't have grown like they did since customers wouldn't pick them over existing incumbents. Customers do have a choice in aggregate and they express that choice. Some people who don't agree with that choice try to say customer's have no choice but in the end they do and the person saying it is upset they're a minority.
Xeamek 3y ago
Partially true, but let's not pretend that when trends are set by the companies of the size of Google or Apple, they are still following the customer's will the same way some small, or even medium sized company does. They have enough power to shape the landscape itself, and as such they can drastically steer the outcome of "customer needs"
- marcinzm 3y ago
  >companies of the size of Google or Apple Neither of them used to be the giants they are but overall they made solutions that their customers (who are, btw, advertisers in Google's case) wanted and bought over larger existing competitors. Apple's market cap has increased 500x since the late 90s.
  - Xeamek 3y ago
    Ye and? Obviously they entered the market with simply good products, but that doesn't change the fact that now they have a lot of power that comes simply from their size. Im not saying its their only advantage, just that it plays big role. But also, common now. Today's platform lockins are much more impactful then anything we had in the 90'. And you don't compete with Google's product anymore, but rather you compete with ecosystem that half of the world bought in. Which makes it practically impossible to be a viable alternative
mapcars 3y ago
> A lot of engineers forget that they are in fact paid to build a product for customers. In a way yes but I think in many ways software became much more than that. In many ways it became a crucial part of human lives as electricity or medical services. And you can say doctors/engineers are being paid to develop new medicine or a new power sources but these have many many levels of government control just because how sensitive and important the matter is, which is not the case with software (yet?).

mgoetzke 3y ago

It took us literally minutes to boot WordPerfect on our school PCs

flohofwoe 3y ago
That's why software often came on ROM cartridges for home computers. Floppy disks and cassette tapes were just a cheap compromise.
notpachet 3y ago
Yeah, when reading the part about slow boot times, I was thinking about back when we still had to boot from floppy...
mike_hearn 3y ago
That's nothing. I remember when booting a game required loading it from cassette tape. Me and my friends would go round to each other's houses, start the computer loading a game, go outside to play a football match and when we got back it'd be nearly ready to start.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I mean, there's booting, and then there's loading a program... My Commodore 64 from the early 80s booted to a full BASIC REPL in around 1 second. Yes, loading from removable media was slow, but the computer was ready to fully use in less time than it takes "modern" systems to even POST. Totally ridiculous.

Pannoniae 3y ago

Boot times are still atrocious, especially on newer AM5/DDR5 systems. My BIOS takes like 20 seconds to POST, and that's apparently normal. (then ~10 seconds for the OS to boot)

Kuinox 3y ago
Your motherboard may be doing a full RAM check on every POST. There are often option in the bios to disable that.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  DDR5 ram has bandwidth of 32,000–64,000 MB/s[1]. Why does it take 20s to check it unless you have a monstrous amount? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR5_SDRAM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR5_SDRAM
  - Kuinox 3y ago
    I don't know where the POST code is run, maybe not the CPU ? Also, i'd imagine this sort of code to not parallelise the checks because it try very hard to be bug-free, so we are looking at a piece of code scanning the whole RAM linearly, I don't think you reach anything near the max bandwith of your stick of RAM in this scenario. The problem here is that it does that at every boot, it should do it once, you maybe have disable fast-boot options or equivalent in the bios ?
l0b0 3y ago
A huge amount of boot time seems to be because BIOS waits several seconds(!) by default for various hardware to get into a stable state after powering up.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Since when customers have any meaningful choice or way to express preferences? It's long been a supply-driven market: vendors make what they want, customers buy what's being put on the market.

AlexandrB 3y ago
I feel like it's gotten even worse with pervasive telemetry and A/B testing. Now customers get more of what they "engage" with even if that's not what they want.
marcinzm 3y ago
>Since when customers have any meaningful choice or way to express preferences? It's long been a supply-driven market: vendors make what they want, customers buy what's being put on the market. By your logic Tesla and Apple shouldn't have grown like they did since customers wouldn't pick them over existing incumbents. Customers do have a choice in aggregate and they express that choice. Some people who don't agree with that choice try to say customer's have no choice but in the end they do and the person saying it is upset they're a minority.

Xeamek 3y ago

Partially true, but let's not pretend that when trends are set by the companies of the size of Google or Apple, they are still following the customer's will the same way some small, or even medium sized company does. They have enough power to shape the landscape itself, and as such they can drastically steer the outcome of "customer needs"

marcinzm 3y ago
>companies of the size of Google or Apple Neither of them used to be the giants they are but overall they made solutions that their customers (who are, btw, advertisers in Google's case) wanted and bought over larger existing competitors. Apple's market cap has increased 500x since the late 90s.
- Xeamek 3y ago
  Ye and? Obviously they entered the market with simply good products, but that doesn't change the fact that now they have a lot of power that comes simply from their size. Im not saying its their only advantage, just that it plays big role. But also, common now. Today's platform lockins are much more impactful then anything we had in the 90'. And you don't compete with Google's product anymore, but rather you compete with ecosystem that half of the world bought in. Which makes it practically impossible to be a viable alternative

mapcars 3y ago

> A lot of engineers forget that they are in fact paid to build a product for customers. In a way yes but I think in many ways software became much more than that. In many ways it became a crucial part of human lives as electricity or medical services. And you can say doctors/engineers are being paid to develop new medicine or a new power sources but these have many many levels of government control just because how sensitive and important the matter is, which is not the case with software (yet?).