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

(twitter.com)
837 points turrini | 1 comments | 13 May 25 10:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.227s | source
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SilverSlash ◴[13 May 25 12:08 UTC] No.43971991[source]▶
The title made me think Carmack was criticizing poorly optimized software and advocating for improving performance on old hardware.

When in fact, the tweet is absolutely not about either of the two. He's talking about a thought experiment where hardware stopped advancing and concludes with "Innovative new products would get much rarer without super cheap and scalable compute, of course".

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1. MrBuddyCasino ◴[13 May 25 12:39 UTC] No.43972256[source]▶
This is exactly the point. People ignore that "bloat" is not (just) "waste", it is developer productivity increase motivated by economics.

The ability to hire and have people be productive in a less complicated language expands the market for workers and lowers cost.