"Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran

[Dave Wade]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Peter
> Coghlan
> Sent: 30 October 2015 23:22
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: "Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in
> "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran
> 
> >
> > Our industry is saturated with such refusal to understand.  Consider
> > Microsoft's "throw hardware at the software problems" argument that if
> > their software runs too slowly on your computer, then that shows that
> > YOUR COMPUTER (and you) is inadequate, and you should get a faster
> computer.
> >
> 
> Seems perfectly logical to me.  Microsoft blames your hardware for their
> bloatware running slowly.  You update the hardware and it solves the
> problem.

Not for a long time. Windows/7 was faster than Vista and XP. Never tried 8.0
or 8.1 in anger but they generally needed the same hardware as 7.
Windows/10 might use more disk space but it runs more quickly than 7.

> Then they can ratchet up the bloat level again and convince you that the
> reason the new version runs so slowly is because the hardware you are
> running it on is no longer up to it.  They were right the first time, so
why
> wouldn't they be right this time? GOTO 10.
> 

It no longer works because new machines are not orders of magnitude faster.

> Writing efficient software to get the best out of the hardware would sure
> spoil that business model.
> 

Why? Hardware hasn't really got much faster over the last four years. More
CPU's have been added. In hardware terms anything that runs XP well will run
anything later.
There might be missing drivers, but in general its not a spec problem.

> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.

Dave Wade
G4UGM