3 ms·

People often think "speed" when they read "bloat". But bloat often means layers upon layers of indirection. You want to change the color of the button in one di

by dvh 1y ago

People often think "speed" when they read "bloat". But bloat often means layers upon layers of indirection. You want to change the color of the button in one dialog. You find the dialog code, change the color and nothing. You dig deeper and find that some modules use different colors for common button, so you find the module setting, change the color and nothing. You dig deeper and find that global themes can change colors. You find the global theme, change the color and nothing. You start searching entire codebase and find that over 17 files change the color of that particular button and one of those files does it in a timer loop because your predecessor couldn't find out why the button color changed 16 times on startup so he just constantly change it to brown once a second. That is bloat. Trivial change will take you half a day. And PM is breathing on your neck asking why changing button color takes so long.

alganet 1y ago
No. What you described is known as technical debt. Bloat affects the end user, and it's a loose definition. Anything that was planned, went wrong, and affects user experience could be defined as bloat (many toolbars like Office had, many purposes like iTunes had, etc). Bloat and technical debt are related, but not the same. There is a lot of software that has a very clean codebase and bloated experience, and vice-versa. Speed is an ambiguous term. It is often better to think in terms of real performance and user-perceived performance. For example, many Apple UX choices prioritize user perceived performance instead of real performance. Smooth animations to cover up loading times, things such as that. Their own users don't even know why, they often cannot explain why it feels smooth, even experienced tech people. Things that are not performant but appear to be fast are good examples of good user-perceived performance. Things that are performant but appear to be slow exist as well (fast backend lacking proper cache layer, fast responses but throttled by concurrent requests, etc).
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >many Apple UX choices prioritize user perceived performance instead of real performance. Then why does Apple still ship 60Hz displays in 2025? The perceived performance on scrolling a web page on 60Hz is jarring no matter how performant your SoC is.
  - alganet 1y ago
    I don't know why. I said many choices are focused on user-perceived performance, not all of them. Refresh rate only really makes a case for performance in games. In everyday tasks, like scrolling, it's more about aesthetics and comfort. Also, their scrolling on 60Hz looks better than scrolling on Android at 60Hz. They know this. Why they didn't prioritize using 120Hz screens is out of my knowledge. Also, you lack attention. These we're merely examples to expand on the idea of bloat versus technical debt. I am answering out of kindness and in the spirit of sharing my perspective to point the thread in a more positive discussion.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >Refresh rate only really makes a case for performance in games Refresh rate really matters for everything in motion, not just games, that's why I said scrolling. > In everyday tasks, like scrolling, it's more about aesthetics and comfort. Smooth scrolling IS everyday comfort. Try going from 120Hz to 60Hz and see how you feel. >their scrolling on 60Hz looks better than scrolling on Android at 60Hz. Apple beat physics?
      - alganet 1y ago
        You lack attention. It matters for comfort in everything. It matters for performance on games much more. Most users don't even know about refresh rate, they just know their iPhones feels good. They don't let you scroll as fast as Android does, which makes the flickering disorienting sensation of speed scrolling in a low refresh rate less prominent. It optimizes for comfort given the hardware they opted to use. Android lets you scroll faster, and it does not adjust the scrolling dynamics according to the refresh rate setting. It's optimized for the high end models with 120Hz or more, so it sucks on low end settings or phones. Some people take years to understand those things. It requires attention.
      - insomagent 1y ago
        Battery life? Temperature? Price-to-performance ratio? These are not decisions that are solved as simply as decreeing "every device must have at least 3000Hz refresh rate."

by dvh 1y ago

alganet 1y ago

No. What you described is known as technical debt. Bloat affects the end user, and it's a loose definition. Anything that was planned, went wrong, and affects user experience could be defined as bloat (many toolbars like Office had, many purposes like iTunes had, etc). Bloat and technical debt are related, but not the same. There is a lot of software that has a very clean codebase and bloated experience, and vice-versa. Speed is an ambiguous term. It is often better to think in terms of real performance and user-perceived performance. For example, many Apple UX choices prioritize user perceived performance instead of real performance. Smooth animations to cover up loading times, things such as that. Their own users don't even know why, they often cannot explain why it feels smooth, even experienced tech people. Things that are not performant but appear to be fast are good examples of good user-perceived performance. Things that are performant but appear to be slow exist as well (fast backend lacking proper cache layer, fast responses but throttled by concurrent requests, etc).

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>many Apple UX choices prioritize user perceived performance instead of real performance. Then why does Apple still ship 60Hz displays in 2025? The perceived performance on scrolling a web page on 60Hz is jarring no matter how performant your SoC is.
- alganet 1y ago
  I don't know why. I said many choices are focused on user-perceived performance, not all of them. Refresh rate only really makes a case for performance in games. In everyday tasks, like scrolling, it's more about aesthetics and comfort. Also, their scrolling on 60Hz looks better than scrolling on Android at 60Hz. They know this. Why they didn't prioritize using 120Hz screens is out of my knowledge. Also, you lack attention. These we're merely examples to expand on the idea of bloat versus technical debt. I am answering out of kindness and in the spirit of sharing my perspective to point the thread in a more positive discussion.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >Refresh rate only really makes a case for performance in games Refresh rate really matters for everything in motion, not just games, that's why I said scrolling. > In everyday tasks, like scrolling, it's more about aesthetics and comfort. Smooth scrolling IS everyday comfort. Try going from 120Hz to 60Hz and see how you feel. >their scrolling on 60Hz looks better than scrolling on Android at 60Hz. Apple beat physics?
    - alganet 1y ago
      You lack attention. It matters for comfort in everything. It matters for performance on games much more. Most users don't even know about refresh rate, they just know their iPhones feels good. They don't let you scroll as fast as Android does, which makes the flickering disorienting sensation of speed scrolling in a low refresh rate less prominent. It optimizes for comfort given the hardware they opted to use. Android lets you scroll faster, and it does not adjust the scrolling dynamics according to the refresh rate setting. It's optimized for the high end models with 120Hz or more, so it sucks on low end settings or phones. Some people take years to understand those things. It requires attention.
    - insomagent 1y ago
      Battery life? Temperature? Price-to-performance ratio? These are not decisions that are solved as simply as decreeing "every device must have at least 3000Hz refresh rate."