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When I started as a programmer in the late 70s the relationship between hardware costs and programmer costs were just about the reverse to those described by Je
by bdfh42 18y ago
When I started as a programmer in the late 70s the relationship between hardware costs and programmer costs were just about the reverse to those described by Jeff. It was always cheaper to optimise the code than it was to invest in new hardware. I must admit that it is hard to shrug off the frugal approach to the hardware that I adopted at the start of my developer career - I think it still pays off to err on the side of low hardware overhead whenever the option arises.
- davidw 18y agoHrm. I guess the guy cited in my online journal was really thinking ahead: http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/12/04/the-economics-of-programming-languages-in-the-1950s http://journal.dedasys.com/2008/12/04/the-economics-of-progr... It's an extract from a paper from the 1950'ies by Backus (yeah, that Backus) saying pretty much exactly what Atwood says.