3 ms·

And it's not fair to consumers to make them deal with blindingly fast software that doesn't actually do what they want when they're quite willing to put up with

And it's not fair to consumers to make them deal with blindingly fast software that doesn't actually do what they want when they're quite willing to put up with slow, bloated software that does. I'd dispute the "quite" part. Begrudgingly willing, certainly. I'm not sure of any consumers/end users who actually enjoy low performance and bloat, as those almost inevitably hinder getting the task in question done via wasted time and cognitive overload, respectively. Depending on use case, some people might prefer going through a few more hoops in a shoddier UI than gazing for long times as a slicker one, if total time spent is lesser, or even if merely the perception of total time spent is lesser (e.g. when individual context switches are shorter, even if there's more of them) If anything, it's programmers who are able to appreciate inefficiency far more, especially if it's their own doing that saves them some mental resources while having the trap of complacency with mediocrity at their side. That said, you are correct about software being hugely diverse. Software is the mechanism, not the end goal. Even still, I believe that no field employing software should value low performance as a virtue. Not social web applications, people actually spend lots of time on those.

nostrademons 12y ago
Which is where the "Start a company to develop software along these principles" part comes in. In some industries, saying "It's just like [popular product you use] but much faster" is enough to make the sale. That's the value proposition behind uTorrent, Skylight.io, Apache Spark, Akamai, Cloudflare, and others. In other industries, people don't care. I suspect that if you created a messenger that's "Like WhatsApp, but faster", nobody would care - and making something like AirBnB or Thumbtack faster gives only a marginal improvement when most of the bottleneck is waiting for a human to respond. By focusing on what you can do to make a buck and exploit your technical advantages instead of what other people should do, you end up teasing out the parts in the industry where it matters. That benefits everybody, while a blanket pronouncement of what everyone should do doesn't.
- VLM 12y ago
  "Like WhatsApp, but faster" Machine cycles are time; they are also energy. "Like WhatsApp, but your battery lasts an extra day longer" That would be a killer app. It would probably be a lie unless someone knows some space alien technology I can't even imagine, but if it were possible it would be a killer app.

nostrademons 12y ago

Which is where the "Start a company to develop software along these principles" part comes in. In some industries, saying "It's just like [popular product you use] but much faster" is enough to make the sale. That's the value proposition behind uTorrent, Skylight.io, Apache Spark, Akamai, Cloudflare, and others. In other industries, people don't care. I suspect that if you created a messenger that's "Like WhatsApp, but faster", nobody would care - and making something like AirBnB or Thumbtack faster gives only a marginal improvement when most of the bottleneck is waiting for a human to respond. By focusing on what you can do to make a buck and exploit your technical advantages instead of what other people should do, you end up teasing out the parts in the industry where it matters. That benefits everybody, while a blanket pronouncement of what everyone should do doesn't.

VLM 12y ago
"Like WhatsApp, but faster" Machine cycles are time; they are also energy. "Like WhatsApp, but your battery lasts an extra day longer" That would be a killer app. It would probably be a lie unless someone knows some space alien technology I can't even imagine, but if it were possible it would be a killer app.