Re: The problem with not owning the software

On Sat, 28 Dec 2024 17:11:52 -0500, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

I was telling my wife the exact same thing. We're not doing much more
than we were in 2008, yet a 2008 machine would be incapable of handling
today's software (unless it's running Linux). At some point, people need
to wake up and realize that the exponential increase in speed isn't
offering any real benefit to users who are doing anything other than
video editing or gaming.

Yes and no.  VS Code or Vim patiently waits for many more cycles while I
figure out what I'm trying to do. Otoh I can do things with Python that
wouldn't have been possible 25 years ago. The user doesn't have a clue if
the back end is FastAPI or FastCGI using compiled C.

I recall when Java was young, lithe, and slender. Then Swing came along
and it turned into a hog. The answer was 'you need a faster machine.'

As far as the user is concerned there is no difference but the speed
increases enabled technologies that (supposedly) made development faster.

There is a similar effect with microcontrollers. A 8048 was extremely
limited and you usually wound up using assembler. The Atmel chip in the
classic Arduinos is luxurious and you can work in C/C++. However there
still are memory limits. The Arm based chips are faster and have more
flash so for many applications you can use MicroPython or CircuitPython
unless you need very fine control of the chip. If you want to do your
Christmas lights with neopixels, Python is a lot easier than fiddling
around with the C SDK.

Is that progress? Beat's me. I was at a museum that had a display of the
development of household labor saving devices. It noted that when
housewives received all these new time savers they tended to find new
things to spend the saved time on. Filling your house with Victorian
kitsch didn't advance civilization.