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Four Years of Jai (2024)

(smarimccarthy.is)
166 points xixixao | 3 comments | 15 Apr 25 23:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.708s | source
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mustache_kimono ◴[18 Apr 25 18:43 UTC] No.43730779[source]▶
> Software has been getting slower at a rate roughly equivalent to the rate at which computers are getting faster.

Cite?

This problem statement is also such a weird introduction to specifically this new programming language. Yes, compiled languages with no GC are faster than the alternatives. But the problem is and was not the alternatives. Those alternatives fill the vast majority of computing uses and work well enough.

The problem is compiled languages with no GC, before Rust, were bug prone, and difficult to use safely.

So -- why are we talking about this? Because jblow won't stop catastrophizing. He has led a generation of impressionable programmers to believe that we in some dark age of software, when that statement couldn't be further from the truth.

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troupo ◴[18 Apr 25 19:58 UTC] No.43731373[source]▶
> He has led a generation of impressionable programmers to believe that we in some dark age of software, when that statement couldn't be further from the truth.

Have you actually used modern software?

There's a great rant about Visual Studio debugger which in recent versions cannot even update debugged values as you step through the program unlike its predecessors: https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U?si=t6BsHkHhoRF46mYM

And this is professional software. There's state of personal software is worse. Most programs cannot show a page of text with a few images without consuming gigabytes of RAM and not-insignificant percentages of CPU.

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mustache_kimono ◴[19 Apr 25 02:30 UTC] No.43733731[source]▶
> Have you actually used modern software?

Uh, yes. When was software better (like when was America great)? Do you remember what Windows and Linux and MacOS were like in 90s? What exactly is the software we are comparing?

> There's a great rant about Visual Studio debugger

Yeah, I'm not sure these are "great rants" as you say. Most are about how software with different constraints than video games aren't made with same constraints as video games. Can you believe it?

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rk06 ◴[19 Apr 25 04:14 UTC] No.43734163[source]▶
I am told that in Visual Studio 2008, you could debug line by line, and it was smooth. Like there was zero lag. Then Microsoft rewrite VS from c++ into c# and it became much slower

Modern software is indeed slow especially when you consider how fast modern hardware is.

If you want to feel the difference, try highly optimised software against a popular one. For eg: linux vs windows, windows explorer vs filepilot, zed vs vscode.

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mustache_kimono ◴[19 Apr 25 05:02 UTC] No.43734329[source]▶
> I am told that in Visual Studio 2008, you could debug line by line, and it was smooth. Like there was zero lag. Then Microsoft rewrite VS from c++ into c# and it became much slower

Not exactly a surprise? Microsoft made a choice to move to C# and the code was slower? Says precious little about software in general and much more about the constraints of modern development.

> If you want to feel the difference, try highly optimised software against a popular one. For eg: linux vs windows, windows explorer vs filepilot, zed vs vscode.

This reasoning is bonkers. Compare vastly different software with a vastly different design center to something only in the same vague class of systems?

If the question is "Is software getting worse or better?", doesn't it make more sense to compare newer software to the same old software? Again -- do you remember what Windows and Linux and MacOS were like in 90s? Do you not believe they have improved?

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rk06 ◴[19 Apr 25 13:15 UTC] No.43736186[source]▶
I have used windows since 20 years. I distinctly recall it becoming slower and painful over time despite using more powerful hardware.

But hey that could be nostalgia, right? We can't run win xp in today's world. Not is it recommend with lots of software ot being supported on win xp.

The same is case for Android. Android 4 has decent performance, then android 5 came and single handedly reduced performance and battery life. And again you can't go back due to newer apps no longer supporting old android version.

This is also seen with apple where newer os version is painful on older devices.

So, on what basis do you fairly say that "modern apps are slow"? That's why I say to use faster software as reference. I have linux and windows dual boot on same machine. An dthen difference in performance is night and day

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1. mustache_kimono ◴[19 Apr 25 17:38 UTC] No.43737963[source]▶
> So, on what basis do you fairly say that "modern apps are slow"? That's why I say to use faster software as reference. I have linux and windows dual boot on same machine. An dthen difference in performance is night and day

Then you're not comparing old and new software. You're comparing apples and oranges. Neovim is comparable to VS Code in only the most superficial terms.

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2. troupo ◴[20 Apr 25 09:20 UTC] No.43742631[source]▶
> Neovim is comparable to VS Code in only the most superficial terms.

Oh no. It can be compared in more than superficial terms. E.g. their team struggled to create a performant terminal in VS Code. Because the tech they chose (and the tech a lot of the world is using) is incapable of outputting text to the screen fast enough. Where "fast enough" is "with minimal acceptable speed which is still hundreds of times slower than a modern machine is capable of": https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2017/10/03/terminal-rend...

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3. mustache_kimono ◴[20 Apr 25 15:33 UTC] No.43744439[source]▶
> E.g. their team struggled to create a performant terminal in VS Code.

WTF are you talking about? Neovim doesn't implement a terminal?