Re: Bloatware and the 80/20 Myth (was some unrelated subject)

[Emmanuel Seyman <seyman moe acticiel com>]

On Wed, Jan 09, 2002 at 02:54:34PM +0000, Bill Crawford wrote:
>
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Marco wrote:
> 
> > > And I don't think anyone will deny that on today's overpowered,
> > > under-priced computers, loading a huge program is still faster than
> > > loading a small program was even 5 years ago. So what's the problem?
> 
> I think the problem is just that ... many programs are *not* loading
> faster.

This reminds of a joke I read on Slashdot a while ago:

Moore's Law: "Every 18 months, proc. speed is multiplied by 2"
Gates's Law: "Every 18 months, software speed is divided by 2"

Quick quiz, how long did it take your computer to boot 10 years ago
and how long does it take now? My guess is that it still takes
as long as it did then, if not longer.

> Very good point (to be fair, I found early versions of GNOME usable on
> a P75, and used enlightenment on a 486, and was reasonably happy at the
> time :o)

I'm running fvwm2 and you won't see me complaining. :->

>  That's not entirely true; if the application is well written, then you
> just don't ever page in the code for the 80% of functions you don't use
> and so the memory should be saved.  How well this works in practice, of
> course, is open to question.

This is something that wasn't that much of an issue until a while ago.
User-level apps loaded themselves in RAM, period.

> > Conclusion: start saying to everybody claiming that "HW is cheap, so
> >  bloatware is harmless" "OK, if it's so cheap  *YOU* go and buy me a new
> > PC"

Don't know why but I like this idea. :-)

Emmanuel