5 ms·

> But here’s the thing: I don’t need it. I don’t have a single usecase for which I would need this much processing power. In fact, I could still use that i5 fro

> But here’s the thing: I don’t need it. I don’t have a single usecase for which I would need this much processing power. In fact, I could still use that i5 from 2011 and it would do everything I want it to do perfectly fine. I didn’t need to upgrade, I just wanted to. If only we could have a bigger percentage of people that thought the same way. Then we might be able to get away from the insanity of marketing for new New NEW when what you have will do. Maybe these huge “tech” companies will be taken down a peg into more sane valuation territories. Maybe we’ll stop with the mounting piles of e-waste driven by the advertisers pushing FOMO of not having the shiniest. A guy can dream though. I figure I’ll slow my pace of upgrades even more than I have now and when the software becomes yet a larger pile of bloated nonsense shat out by clueless developers than it already is, I’ll switch back to writing letters.

keybored 2y ago
Consumer Capitalism is neither driven nor perturbed by environmentally and clock-conscientious nerds.
lbrito 2y ago
>Then we might be able to get away from the insanity of marketing for new New NEW when what you have will do. That is literally how modern capitalist consumer economies work. The whole system is based on the assumption of more people buying more things they don't need, computers and otherwise. Our society is that way intentionally.
SoftTalker 2y ago
I'm doing my part. I'm writing this on a ~10 year old computer at home and my machine at work is ~9 years old. Both absolutely capable of doing what I need.
palata 2y ago
> when what you have will do The problem is that it doesn't. Software developers get the latest hardware, either because they like it ("it's my job") or because their company pays for it. As a result, they write software that works on their hardware, which is obviously more forgiving in terms of performance. Eventually, everybody has to update their hardware because their current hardware can't load a simple website or a chat app. I can see a huge difference when loading website on my work computer vs my personal computer. Just last month my weather forecast app was updated and became literally unusable on my phone. Of course I can't use the old one anymore, so I don't have access to the public national weather forecast app. It works great on more modern phones though... showing exactly the same data as the previous app, but... I guess it looks more modern?
- RajT88 2y ago
  Not to mention QA machines tend to be a lot cleaner than the real life machines running the app.
- theideaofcoffee 2y ago
  These software “engineers” that insist on the latest-specced toys are part of the problem. By not living up to their imagined title and actually engineering within constraints (constrained hardware performance which would beget more efficient software), they’re just punting and saying “oops, -I- didn’t do this”. But they’re not engineers and never will be until they take some responsibility for being a partial cause for the current mess.
  - AstralStorm 2y ago
    To a point yes. However remember that it takes time and effort to optimize the software down. And if you write it for slower hardware from the start it will be less capable and/or creative. Might be pretty cool still, or even useful. Just not quite as cool and useful. Can't have your cake and eat it too. It's not all laziness. How long did it take to get Doom to run on a toaster? ;)
    - palata 2y ago
      > Just not quite as cool and useful. I am genuinely trying, but I am finding hard to find modern software that qualifies for those words. Is Slack "super cool and useful"? Is Word/Excel a lot cooler and more useful than... well honestly 20 years ago? Does Microsoft Teams qualify for that? Facebook? Instagram? I don't think that more powerful hardware allows developer to write "cooler" and "more useful" stuff. What it allows is to write more, faster. Since the early 2010s, it feels like we specialized in writing worse software, but writing a lot more of it.
  - rvdginste 2y ago
    As a software engineer, I insist on giving developers high-end laptops. The reason is very simple: a lot of development environments are very heavy to run, and developers should not waste time on their development tools running slowly. I also don't want developers to disable tools that are meant to keep an eye on the quality of the code. High-end laptops generally serve well for development for up to 5 years. Developing on high-end laptops should definitely not be an excuse to deliver slow software, and in the teams I work in, we do pay attention to performance. You are right though, a lot of software is a lot slower than it should be and my opinion is that the reason is often developers that lack fairly basic knowledge about data structures, algorithms, databases, latency,... One could say that time pressure on the project could also play a role, but I strongly believe that lack of knowledge plays a much bigger role. Now, aside from that, also keep in mind that users (or the product owner) become more and more demanding about what software can and should do (deservedly or not). The more a piece of software must do, the more complex the code becomes and the more difficult it becomes to keep it in a good state. Lastly, in my humble opinion, the lowest range budget laptops are simply not worth buying, even for less demanding users. I think that most users on a low budget would be better off with a second-hand middle or high range laptop for the same price. (I am talking here about laptops that people expect to run Windows on, no experience with Chromebooks.)

keybored 2y ago

Consumer Capitalism is neither driven nor perturbed by environmentally and clock-conscientious nerds.

lbrito 2y ago

>Then we might be able to get away from the insanity of marketing for new New NEW when what you have will do. That is literally how modern capitalist consumer economies work. The whole system is based on the assumption of more people buying more things they don't need, computers and otherwise. Our society is that way intentionally.

SoftTalker 2y ago

I'm doing my part. I'm writing this on a ~10 year old computer at home and my machine at work is ~9 years old. Both absolutely capable of doing what I need.

palata 2y ago

> when what you have will do The problem is that it doesn't. Software developers get the latest hardware, either because they like it ("it's my job") or because their company pays for it. As a result, they write software that works on their hardware, which is obviously more forgiving in terms of performance. Eventually, everybody has to update their hardware because their current hardware can't load a simple website or a chat app. I can see a huge difference when loading website on my work computer vs my personal computer. Just last month my weather forecast app was updated and became literally unusable on my phone. Of course I can't use the old one anymore, so I don't have access to the public national weather forecast app. It works great on more modern phones though... showing exactly the same data as the previous app, but... I guess it looks more modern?

RajT88 2y ago
Not to mention QA machines tend to be a lot cleaner than the real life machines running the app.
theideaofcoffee 2y ago
These software “engineers” that insist on the latest-specced toys are part of the problem. By not living up to their imagined title and actually engineering within constraints (constrained hardware performance which would beget more efficient software), they’re just punting and saying “oops, -I- didn’t do this”. But they’re not engineers and never will be until they take some responsibility for being a partial cause for the current mess.
- AstralStorm 2y ago
  To a point yes. However remember that it takes time and effort to optimize the software down. And if you write it for slower hardware from the start it will be less capable and/or creative. Might be pretty cool still, or even useful. Just not quite as cool and useful. Can't have your cake and eat it too. It's not all laziness. How long did it take to get Doom to run on a toaster? ;)
  - palata 2y ago
    > Just not quite as cool and useful. I am genuinely trying, but I am finding hard to find modern software that qualifies for those words. Is Slack "super cool and useful"? Is Word/Excel a lot cooler and more useful than... well honestly 20 years ago? Does Microsoft Teams qualify for that? Facebook? Instagram? I don't think that more powerful hardware allows developer to write "cooler" and "more useful" stuff. What it allows is to write more, faster. Since the early 2010s, it feels like we specialized in writing worse software, but writing a lot more of it.
- rvdginste 2y ago
  As a software engineer, I insist on giving developers high-end laptops. The reason is very simple: a lot of development environments are very heavy to run, and developers should not waste time on their development tools running slowly. I also don't want developers to disable tools that are meant to keep an eye on the quality of the code. High-end laptops generally serve well for development for up to 5 years. Developing on high-end laptops should definitely not be an excuse to deliver slow software, and in the teams I work in, we do pay attention to performance. You are right though, a lot of software is a lot slower than it should be and my opinion is that the reason is often developers that lack fairly basic knowledge about data structures, algorithms, databases, latency,... One could say that time pressure on the project could also play a role, but I strongly believe that lack of knowledge plays a much bigger role. Now, aside from that, also keep in mind that users (or the product owner) become more and more demanding about what software can and should do (deservedly or not). The more a piece of software must do, the more complex the code becomes and the more difficult it becomes to keep it in a good state. Lastly, in my humble opinion, the lowest range budget laptops are simply not worth buying, even for less demanding users. I think that most users on a low budget would be better off with a second-hand middle or high range laptop for the same price. (I am talking here about laptops that people expect to run Windows on, no experience with Chromebooks.)