DEV Community

Discussion on: Does your website really need to be larger than Windows 95?

Collapse
 
simonhaisz profile image
simonhaisz

If Moore's law hadn't died I wonder if we'd be having this conversation?

There's a reason that "necessity is the mother of invention" is a saying. The biggest reason why programs back in the day had tiny footprints or performed well on slow hardware was because they had to - there was no other option and so they found a way. Especially when examples like the Apollo program are brought up. They were trying to accomplish something that the human race had never done before. Not exactly comparable to a web site where people share cat videos. You make a mistake in the former and people die while the world is watching. In the later? A few people are annoyed and if they F5 it'll probably work.

Collapse
 
tux0r profile image
tux0r • Edited

The biggest reason why programs back in the day had tiny footprints or performed well on slow hardware was because they had to

And what is the reason to have giant footprints today? Do they also have to?

Software that "probably works" is broken for me.

Collapse
 
simonhaisz profile image
simonhaisz • Edited

They don't have to be large. But optimisation isn't free. I can write a bloated program in one hour that uses 1MB. In one day you can write a program that is functionality equivalent that uses 1KB. 10x the time for 1000x the benefit. Sounds amazing! Except what if you have 1GB available? At this point MB vs KB seems like a rounding error. Why wouldn't someone develop 5-10 apps instead of one?

Unless your position is that being efficient has zero cost?