13 Aug
2006
13 Aug
'06
10:56 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Oh, there was certainly some good hardware around. Actually, for
embedded type systems like telecomms, I believe that they haven't seen
anything like the kind of bloat that's around for desktop / server
systems. But the fact that ever-faster telecomms equipment was ever in
vented in the first place has a lot to do with the problem I think (and
not just in computing, but all aspects of society).
Telecom (and other embedded markets) tend to run off a different
business model. Reliability is (was?) the driving force since
you didn't want to have to replace your equipment (nor *service*
it!) very often.
I suspect telecom is moving away from this, now, and more towards
the disposable mentality since It Ain't Your Plain Telephone
Anymore (i.e. they EXPECT consumers to drive the technology
so current investments are not LONG TERM investments).
Tim Shoppa wrote:
I don't think users understand how much they have spent for
what they have "received". Take some old software and install
it on a *new* machine and you will have folks drooling: "Where
did you buy THAT machine?! It's 10 times faster than my
3GHZ frack-o-matic! I've got to have one! Imagine how GREAT
my VIDeo GAMES would be on that box???!"
And, to be honest, I think "we" (developers, etc.) also take
advantage of the improvements in technology. Laziness creeps
in. E.g., I had to write a nice little search algorithm
to minimize a function. I didn't hesitate to pass int[50]
arrays AS ARGUMENTS to the *recursive* function (e.g.,
it will recurse to a depth of ~50 and each invocation
carries 200 bytes of int[] arguments). Sure, I could
write something more elegant but it's a throw-away
algorithm (to verify some parameters) that I *may* use
twice more in my lifetime??
Now, how do you keep that mentality from creeping into your
9-to-5 if your boss is hounding you to get things done
YESTERDAY? :<
Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at
yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
I think the problem there was that the software guys saw that people
were buying lots of hardware because it was cheap, and bloated their
code out to match :( Why it's getting steadily worse, I don't
know. I'm tempted to lay the
blame at the feet of faster and more widespread communications; if
people can communicate more quickly and further afield then there'll
be more pressure to get a job done as quickly as possible and with an
eye to short-term savings only.
I was tempted to think that in the 2000 era we had gotten past the hump
of "buy more hardware because it's cheap" stage. Had modern communications existed without computers,
and the computer
only invented now, I expect we would have seen a raft of giant
inefficient systems springing up almost overnight and the specialised
machines of past decades just wouldn't have happened.
Some of the more interesting computers of the 60's and 70's are in fact
telecom switches and the computers that controlled them, and as far as
I can see these were built/bought/deployed entirely with good
economic justification (reduced maintenance/ease of reprovisioning)
rather than just industry buzzwords as
justification. Maybe I'm looking at that era with rose-colored glasses
:-). As soon as it's possible to ask a question of
someone halfway around the
world and demand an answer in the same day, or reach them whilst they're
visiting the bathroom, there's bound to be trouble!
sheepish grin as I recall that when I installed the PBX I
wired *both* bathrooms -- for phone, CAT5 *and* CATV! :>