6 ms·

> readers are asked to build up an idea of what attitudes software engineers supposedly have. But they do, don't they. Discourse's founder's words are just ver

by troupo 3y ago

> readers are asked to build up an idea of what attitudes software engineers supposedly have. But they do, don't they. Discourse's founder's words are just very illustrative. Have you used the web recently? I have. It's bloated beyond any imagination to the point that Google now says that 2.4 seconds to Largest Contentful Paint is fast now: https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vitals.html https://blog.chromium.org/2020/05/the-science-behind-web-vit... (this is from 4 years ago, it's probably worse now). You don't have to go far to see either Youtube loading 2.5 megabytes of CSS on desktop to the founder of Vercel boasting its super fast sites that take 20 seconds to load the moment you throttle it just a tiny bit: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1735338533303259571 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1735338533303259571

Karrot_Kream 3y ago
You're making the same mistake the post did. It depends on the reader already having sympathy for the idea that bloat is bad in order to make its case. I can read nerd site comments all day that lament bloat. For an article to stand on its own on this point it has to make the case to people who don't already believe this. Dan's articles have usually been very good at that. The keyboard latency one for example makes few assumptions and mostly relies on data to tell its story. My point is that this article is different. It's an elevated rant. It relies on an audience that already agrees to land its point, hence my criticism that it's too couched in internet fights.
- B56b 3y ago
  I think the article makes a pretty good case for bloat being bad for low-end users actually. His analysis demonstrates how many websites become genuinely unusable on cheaper devices, not just to techie standards, but for anyone trying to actually interact with the page at all.
- liveoneggs 3y ago
  State your case that bloat is good. I currently have a client who will do literally anything except delete a single javascript library so I'd like to understand them better.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    Joel Spolsky on Excel bloat, 2001: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv-bloatware-and-the-8020-myth/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...
    - jiggawatts 3y ago
      The latest version of Excel loads faster on my laptop than most websites do. I’ve timed this. I can load the entire MS Office suite and open a Visual Studio 2022 project in less time then it takes to open a blank Jira web form. What’s your point?
      - jodrellblank 3y ago
        My point is to reply to "State your case that bloat is good" with a famous blog stating a case that bloat is good. Bloat makes the company more money by allowing them to develop and ship faster, bloat makes the company more money by being able to offer more features to more customers (including the advertisers and marketers and etc. side of things), and - well, read the article. I, too, dislike slow websites and web apps, but I don't think they are some mystery - natural selection isn't selecting for idiot developers, market selection is selecting for tickbox features and with first-mover-advantage they are selecting against "fast but not available for another year and has fewer features and cost more to develop".
      - skydhash 3y ago
        Due to prevalence of native apps in the macOS world, the difference are often stark. I use Things and Bear, and it’s fast, then try to load gmail (dump account, so it’s not in Mail) and it’s so slow. Youtube too. Fastmail, in comparison, loads like it’s on localhost. You block JavaScript and the amount of sites that is broken is ridiculous, some you would not expect (websites, not fullblown interactive apps).
    - liveoneggs 3y ago
      The web doesn't scale like desktops - not even close. Furthermore - this philosophy has made Windows worse and less responsive in all cases. I understand that this "pays the bills" but my charge is (currently) to make things faster so I am against slowness.
- DinaCoder98 3y ago
  The reason we have bloat is it's easier to satisfy stakeholders if you don't give a damn. There's really no reason to discuss this at all once you realize this. But of course, ranting and reading rants is satisfying in its own right. What's the problem?
- troupo 3y ago
  The article you diss has actual benchmarks in it. The article I linked has actual numbers in it. At this point you're willingly ignoring it because you dislike that this is additionally illustrated by quotes from specific people.
bitwize 3y ago
Usually the directive "don't worry about bloat" comes from above, or outside, the software engineering team. I'm a software engineer and I would love to fix performance problems so that everything runs Amiga smooth. But that takes time and effort to find, analyze, and fix performance issues... and once The Business sees something in more or less working order, implementing the next feature takes priority over removing bloat. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" and that. I know that's not what Knuth meant, he meant don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish when you do optimize. But much like "GO TO considered harmful", something approaching the stupidest possible interpretation of the maxim has become the canonical interpretation. And that's before getting into when The Business wants that sweet, sweet analytics data, or those sweet, sweet ad dollars.

by troupo 3y ago

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

You're making the same mistake the post did. It depends on the reader already having sympathy for the idea that bloat is bad in order to make its case. I can read nerd site comments all day that lament bloat. For an article to stand on its own on this point it has to make the case to people who don't already believe this. Dan's articles have usually been very good at that. The keyboard latency one for example makes few assumptions and mostly relies on data to tell its story. My point is that this article is different. It's an elevated rant. It relies on an audience that already agrees to land its point, hence my criticism that it's too couched in internet fights.

B56b 3y ago
I think the article makes a pretty good case for bloat being bad for low-end users actually. His analysis demonstrates how many websites become genuinely unusable on cheaper devices, not just to techie standards, but for anyone trying to actually interact with the page at all.
liveoneggs 3y ago
State your case that bloat is good. I currently have a client who will do literally anything except delete a single javascript library so I'd like to understand them better.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  Joel Spolsky on Excel bloat, 2001: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv-bloatware-and-the-8020-myth/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    The latest version of Excel loads faster on my laptop than most websites do. I’ve timed this. I can load the entire MS Office suite and open a Visual Studio 2022 project in less time then it takes to open a blank Jira web form. What’s your point?
    - jodrellblank 3y ago
      My point is to reply to "State your case that bloat is good" with a famous blog stating a case that bloat is good. Bloat makes the company more money by allowing them to develop and ship faster, bloat makes the company more money by being able to offer more features to more customers (including the advertisers and marketers and etc. side of things), and - well, read the article. I, too, dislike slow websites and web apps, but I don't think they are some mystery - natural selection isn't selecting for idiot developers, market selection is selecting for tickbox features and with first-mover-advantage they are selecting against "fast but not available for another year and has fewer features and cost more to develop".
    - skydhash 3y ago
      Due to prevalence of native apps in the macOS world, the difference are often stark. I use Things and Bear, and it’s fast, then try to load gmail (dump account, so it’s not in Mail) and it’s so slow. Youtube too. Fastmail, in comparison, loads like it’s on localhost. You block JavaScript and the amount of sites that is broken is ridiculous, some you would not expect (websites, not fullblown interactive apps).
  - liveoneggs 3y ago
    The web doesn't scale like desktops - not even close. Furthermore - this philosophy has made Windows worse and less responsive in all cases. I understand that this "pays the bills" but my charge is (currently) to make things faster so I am against slowness.
DinaCoder98 3y ago
The reason we have bloat is it's easier to satisfy stakeholders if you don't give a damn. There's really no reason to discuss this at all once you realize this. But of course, ranting and reading rants is satisfying in its own right. What's the problem?
troupo 3y ago
The article you diss has actual benchmarks in it. The article I linked has actual numbers in it. At this point you're willingly ignoring it because you dislike that this is additionally illustrated by quotes from specific people.

bitwize 3y ago

Usually the directive "don't worry about bloat" comes from above, or outside, the software engineering team. I'm a software engineer and I would love to fix performance problems so that everything runs Amiga smooth. But that takes time and effort to find, analyze, and fix performance issues... and once The Business sees something in more or less working order, implementing the next feature takes priority over removing bloat. "Premature optimization is the root of all evil" and that. I know that's not what Knuth meant, he meant don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish when you do optimize. But much like "GO TO considered harmful", something approaching the stupidest possible interpretation of the maxim has become the canonical interpretation. And that's before getting into when The Business wants that sweet, sweet analytics data, or those sweet, sweet ad dollars.