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

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838 points turrini | 3 comments | 13 May 25 10:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.736s | source
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fdr ◴[13 May 25 16:17 UTC] No.43974566[source]▶
One of the things I think about sometimes, a specific example rather than a rebuttal to Carmack.

The Electron Application is somewhere between tolerated and reviled by consumers, often on grounds of performance, but it's probably the single innovation that made using my Linux laptop in the workplace tractable. And it is genuinely useful to, for example, drop into a MS Teams meeting without installing.

So, everyone laments that nothing is as tightly coded as Winamp anymore, without remembering the first three characters.

replies(1): >>43975842 #
1. bigstrat2003 ◴[13 May 25 18:04 UTC] No.43975842[source]▶
> So, everyone laments that nothing is as tightly coded as Winamp anymore, without remembering the first three characters.

I would far, far rather have Windows-only software that is performant than the Electron slop we get today. With Wine there's a decent chance I could run it on Linux anyway, whereas Electron software is shit no matter the platform.

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2. jeroenhd ◴[14 May 25 05:55 UTC] No.43981266[source]▶
Wine doesn't even run Office, there's no way it'd run whatever native video stack Teams would use. Linux has Teams purely because Teams decided to go with web as their main technology.

Even the Electron version of Teams on Linux has a reduced feature set because there's no Office to integrate with.

replies(1): >>43982550 #
3. kristianp ◴[14 May 25 09:24 UTC] No.43982550[source]▶
Of course Wine can run office! At least Word and Excel I have used under Wine. They're probably some of the primary targets of compatibility work.