On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 03:19:59PM -0500, Paul Braun wrote:
> In the old days, software had to be tight and efficient because computers
> had tiny amounts of ram, and with the stratospheric prices for upgrades,
> most customers weren't likely to add that extra 8 megabytes of RAM just to
> run your app.
>
> Nowadays, when I can get 64 GIGABYTES of RAM for right around $440,
> software architects figure that if the new version requires more ram to be
> useful, I'll just log into Newegg and order up another pair of SO-DIMMS.
>
> When I graduated from college (university for you "across the ponders") in
> 1984, RAM was $1330 per megabyte. Now, that is enough to stuff 64gigabytes
> into three separate computers.
Yes, RAM is cheap. so ensure the 'minimum system requirements'
specification means that the user has enough RAM installed because it
helps avoid memory paging and avoid bogging the machine down. OK, so
now we have plenty of RAM, so the architect can just write something in
some virtual or abstracted language that uses a poorly optimised
compiler/interpreter, or (more likely) just be lazy and not think about
keeping it tight. But now we find we need more RAM. Yes, RAM is cheap.
so ensure the 'minimum system requirements' specification means that
the user has enough RAM installed....
Also because we have loads more CPU and RAM these days, we can waste CPU
cycles and memory on 'sproinging', twisting, and fading window effects,
or some other bell/whistle type rubbish that impresses the newbie user
for about 10 minutes but has no practical use anywhere but the executive
airport lounge/washroom. Much better spent processing SETI data units.
I'm not cynical, am I? :)
davidt
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