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Linux is “correct” enough. It generally does what it says on the tin. The sad truth is that users don’t care how simple software is to write. They do care abou

Linux is “correct” enough. It generally does what it says on the tin. The sad truth is that users don’t care how simple software is to write. They do care about performance and battery life on their devices. The market chooses complex and fast over simple but slow. Every time - so long as any unnecessary complexity is hidden from users. Simplicity buys you velocity, and velocity matters. But that’s a secondary effect.

exe34 3y ago
> The market chooses complex and fast over simple but slow. No it doesn't. Developers and their employers choose slow and complex that saves them time in development, and customers choose things that exist over things that don't. They don't normally have much of choice between simple and complex.
- josephg 3y ago
  Do you care how simple Google search is, internally, for Google? No. All that matters is it has a good UI, and it returns good search results. > They don't normally have much of choice between simple and complex. I also choose IntelliJ over Vim.
  - exe34 3y ago
    As long as I don't have to buy a new computer every year to run the latest Google, I don't care. If my browser or other essential application keeps growing in ram requirements without ground breaking improvements, I grumble. > I also choose IntelliJ over Vim. Now do the same with your tram or parking ticket app.
    - josephg 3y ago
      Ah! But ram is a performance requirement, not a simplicity thing. Simple software can often be extremely inefficient with how it uses ram - and complex software can be complex because it makes good use of the underlying hardware. I 100% want lean, fast software. But software being lean and fast is often at odds with it being simple. As an example, I’ve written a very complex realtime collaborative text editing library in rust that’s about 3000 loc. I’ve also ported the algorithm to JavaScript in about 500 lines. The JavaScript version is simpler by any metric - and it uses about 10x the ram and runs 100x slower than the optimised rust code. My point is the rust code is better. It sounds like you may agree - at least in part.

exe34 3y ago

> The market chooses complex and fast over simple but slow. No it doesn't. Developers and their employers choose slow and complex that saves them time in development, and customers choose things that exist over things that don't. They don't normally have much of choice between simple and complex.

josephg 3y ago
Do you care how simple Google search is, internally, for Google? No. All that matters is it has a good UI, and it returns good search results. > They don't normally have much of choice between simple and complex. I also choose IntelliJ over Vim.
- exe34 3y ago
  As long as I don't have to buy a new computer every year to run the latest Google, I don't care. If my browser or other essential application keeps growing in ram requirements without ground breaking improvements, I grumble. > I also choose IntelliJ over Vim. Now do the same with your tram or parking ticket app.
  - josephg 3y ago
    Ah! But ram is a performance requirement, not a simplicity thing. Simple software can often be extremely inefficient with how it uses ram - and complex software can be complex because it makes good use of the underlying hardware. I 100% want lean, fast software. But software being lean and fast is often at odds with it being simple. As an example, I’ve written a very complex realtime collaborative text editing library in rust that’s about 3000 loc. I’ve also ported the algorithm to JavaScript in about 500 lines. The JavaScript version is simpler by any metric - and it uses about 10x the ram and runs 100x slower than the optimised rust code. My point is the rust code is better. It sounds like you may agree - at least in part.