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The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority

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835 points turrini | 2 comments | 13 May 25 10:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.411s | source
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AndrewDucker ◴[13 May 25 11:51 UTC] No.43971864[source]▶
Well, yes. It's an economic problem (which is to say, it's a resource allocation problem). Do you have someone spend extra time optimising your software or do you have them produce more functionality. If the latter generates more cash then that's what you'll get them to do. If the former becomes important to your cashflow then you'll get them to do that.
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tgv ◴[13 May 25 12:04 UTC] No.43971960[source]▶
It's the kind of economics that shifts the financial debt to accumulating waste, and technical debt, which is paid for by someone else. It's basically stealing. There are --of course-- many cases in which thorough optimizing doesn't make much sense, but the idea of just adding servers instead of rewriting is a sad state of affairs.
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1. xyzzy123 ◴[13 May 25 12:14 UTC] No.43972037[source]▶
It doesn't seem like stealing to me? Highly optimised software generally takes more effort to create and maintain.

The tradeoff is that we get more software in general, and more features in that software, i.e. software developers are more productive.

I guess on some level we can feel that it's morally bad that adding more servers or using more memory on the client is cheaper than spending developer time but I'm not sure how you could shift that equilibrium without taking away people's freedom to choose how to build software?

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2. HappMacDonald ◴[13 May 25 14:11 UTC] No.43973193[source]▶
I feel like the argument is similar to that of all corporate externality pushes.

For example "polluting the air/water, requiring end-users to fill landfills with packaging and planned obscolescence" allows a company to more cheaply offer more products to you as a consumer.. but now everyone collectively has to live in a more polluted world with climate change and wasted source material converted to expensive and/or dangerous landfills and environmental damage from fracking and strip mining.

But that's still not different from theft. A company that sells you things that "Fell off the back of a truck" is in a position to offer you lower costs and greater variety, as well. Aren't they?

Our shared resources need to be properly managed: neither siphoned wastefully nor ruined via polution. That proper management is a cost, and it either has to be borne by those using the resources and creating the waste, or it is theft of a shared resource and tragedy of the commons.