PC 4GB RAM limit

[David Maynard]

It'd be a poor point then, because it's a quite rational

It's one thing to believe, erroneously IMO, his point is rational but that
doesn't alter the one I just made in any way shape or form as it was a
generic point not tied to any other and quite valid in it's own right.

claim that hardware bloat is ridiculous.

That was not the claim he made.

I'm not arguing
that "all additional hardware horsepower has been absorbed"
though,

But that WAS the claim he made and what I was responding to.

rather that the developers seem to have little to no
concern about the escalating storage requirements nor memory
to run applications. Just because memory is far cheaper
than it used to be, that doesn't mean I find it acceptible
for a developer to take a view that they don't have to
follow good practices.

In the first place, I don't know that they "don't follow good practices"
but would you feel better if programs cost more with fewer features in
exchange for fitting in less memory? Because that choice is certainly
available and for less money as well.

I'm not saying that's the 'sole' reason but it's certainly one.

We could also debate whether we *want*, or agree with, some of those
'features' but that's another matter.

A better argument relating to automobiles is, what do I care
if i haul around 200 lbs. of bricks in my truck everywhere
even though I have no need for them, since my engine has the
extra power and efficiency over one made 40 years ago.
While it's a shame the car dealer couldn't be bothered to
take the bricks out of the trunk when it was sold to me, I
can still drive around therefore all is right in the world.

I disagree that it's a better example, or even consistent with your
argument, because it not only necessitates a presumption there's no reason
whatsoever to the 'bloat' but one also has to waste effort and resources
just to acquire/make and put the bricks in the car when being 'lazy', or
incompetent, the charge you seem to be making against the coders, would
leave them out.

Note that my car example made no assumptions about the merit of any
particular 'improvements' (an eye of the beholder type of thing), nor does
it claim monotonic improvement, just as I don't claim those things for any
particular moment in time for software.

However, over the long haul cars have become more complex and more powerful
all to go the same speed in a 35 MPH zone.

Now, I would contend they're also more comfortable, have better
acceleration, better handling characteristics, higher top end for freeway
cruising, are safer and a better value, among other things, but then the
point was one can make any irrational argument if you pick an appropriately
inappropriate criteria to measure against. So we use a 35 MPH zone and
ignore the rest.

It's a popular politician's trick (as is overstating a case to the point of
absurdity).

That may be a good point, or may not.
Suppose the video editing app had become more and more
bloated onto the point of being less efficient than it
should be. Suppose it's 10% slower as a result. 10% could
be considered the price different between two different
models of CPU, are you happy to pay more for the faster CPU
so the developer can profit more by not making the effort to
code better?

You're going to pay for it whether code gets better or worse and the
coding, on average, is going to be whatever 'the state of the art' is. If
it isn't then that company looses market share and/or goes out of business,
sooner or later, and the programmer is out of a job.

Passing the buck is ok as long as it doesn't
stop here.

But you're inventing a new argument. His was not a '10%' musing of the
margins. It's absolute: "all... has been absorbed." Praise be to Landru.

 

[Al Dykes]

It erases hardware gains. Today's PCs don't run much faster than PCs
twenty years ago, in terms of response time for users; all the
additional hardware horsepower has been absorbed by bloat.

But there is no way you could do the image manipulation done by
something like modern Photoshop on a 10 y/o PC. The same goes for
modern games. OCR is has made huge improvements due to more CPU cycles
and memory.

In XP you can turn off most of the eye candy and turn off lots of
unnecessary processes to bring interactive performance back to
acceptable.

The people that complain about sluggish interactive response, IMO,
frequently have machines full of spyware and the little "helper
applications" that come with consumer devices like printers and
digicams. G*d know, Dell PCs come with lots of this crap preinstalled.

I'm told that the huge address spaces in 64 bit systems will bring
large improvements of AI-ish appls like voice recognition.

 

[Ed Coolidge]

That it's almost universally popular is defacto proof it's not just "a
really stupid way to do things."

No, it just proves that someone a long time ago thought it was a good idea and
no one has thought otherwise. BTW, there are other ways to do it that doesn't
require using memory addresses, it's just more transparent to the current
processor architecture.

 

[Bob]

Software expands to fill availble space.

That's definitely existential. It's also top posted.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

It certainly can't expand into unavailable space

Sure it can - called Virtual Memory.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

That's available.

Not as RAM.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

Miniaturization enables more bloat in the same space

Miniaturization proceeds exponentially (Moore's Law), which means so
will bloat (Gates' Law). Nice to know that Intel (Moore) and Microsoft
(Gates) have teamed up.

The latest Service Pack for Win2K, namely SP4, weighed in at 135MB
when I last downloaded it. Even with 3 Mbits/sec cable modem, it takes
a while to fetch it.

And to think I used to write assembly language programs for a living
on a Compaq lunchbox with a 4 MHz 8088, 640 KB RAM, 2 Mitsubishi 8"
floppies and no hard drive.

--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

I'm not arguing
that "all additional hardware horsepower has been absorbed"
though, rather that the developers seem to have little to no
concern about the escalating storage requirements nor memory
to run applications. Just because memory is far cheaper
than it used to be, that doesn't mean I find it acceptible
for a developer to take a view that they don't have to
follow good practices.

I think the problem, if there really is one, is existential. That is,
it is a part of the nature of computers to expand, both in terms of
h/w and s/w.

Maybe we have just scratched the surface of the capabilities of
computers because they have not expanded enough.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Bob]

In XP you can turn off most of the eye candy and turn off lots of
unnecessary processes to bring interactive performance back to
acceptable.

How do you do that? Are there guides on how to do it?

If I thought I could make XP look and feel like 2K, I might consider
using it. Someday I will have no other choice, so I am always looking
for a way to beat out the day of recogning.


--

Million Mom March For Gun Confiscation
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/mmm.html

A liberal is a person who is so open minded
that their brains have fallen out.

 

[Al Dykes]

How do you do that? Are there guides on how to do it?

If I thought I could make XP look and feel like 2K, I might consider
using it. Someday I will have no other choice, so I am always looking
for a way to beat out the day of recogning.


--

NOTE: This task list predates SP2 but I don't think that changes
things.

The following services can be turned off;

Automatic Updates
Messenger Service
TCP/IP Netbios Helper
Wireless Zero Config (unless have a WiFI adapter in the machine)
Upload Manager
Task Scheduler Server
Error Reporting
Remote Registery
Server Service
Computer Browser

Turn off some of the GUI crap;

Start->Properties Select "classsic"

Start -> Control Panel > System -> Advanced
-> Performance -> Settings

Select "adjust for best performance"

With XP set pagefile to "system managed", have a few GB of free disk
and do a dfrag once in a while. Apply all MS critical updates and
scan for spyware once in a while.

 

[kony]

On Thu, 19 May 2005 06:29:54 -0500, David Maynard

In the first place, I don't know that they "don't follow good practices"
but would you feel better if programs cost more with fewer features in
exchange for fitting in less memory? Because that choice is certainly
available and for less money as well.

I don't feel it would cost more nor have fewer features.
Cost is somewhat fixed, what the market will bear someone
buys the application(s) without foreknowledge of the bloat.

As for features, yes I'd be willing to do without the
features that seem to take up hundreds of MB of space, since
an entire office suite can take up under 50MB.

I'm not saying that's the 'sole' reason but it's certainly one.

We could also debate whether we *want*, or agree with, some of those
'features' but that's another matter.

Sure, but suppose an app has 10% additional features added
over 2 versions but grows by 50%.

I disagree that it's a better example, or even consistent with your
argument, because it not only necessitates a presumption there's no reason
whatsoever to the 'bloat'

I consider the bloat to be the unnecessary parts by
definition, not merely that it's larger than a former
version was... so it seems our concept of bloat varies.

...but one also has to waste effort and resources
just to acquire/make and put the bricks in the car

Code generally comes from somewhere. It's acquired/made and
put into the application.

when being 'lazy', or
incompetent, the charge you seem to be making against the coders, would
leave them out.

Could be laziness, incompetence, lack of sleep, deadlines,
or general apathy, among other reasons I can't foresee.

Note that my car example made no assumptions about the merit of any
particular 'improvements' (an eye of the beholder type of thing), nor does
it claim monotonic improvement, just as I don't claim those things for any
particular moment in time for software.

However, over the long haul cars have become more complex and more powerful
all to go the same speed in a 35 MPH zone.

Now, I would contend they're also more comfortable,

Comfortable?
Naw, I feel like a sardine in anything modern, even with the
car is big the dashes these days wrap around, plus the
center divider... I feel as cramped in an SUV as I felt once
in a long-ago friend's ~ '80 Ford Escort. And no, it's not
me that's now bloated. ;-)

...have better
acceleration, better handling characteristics, higher top end for freeway
cruising, are safer and a better value, among other things, but then the
point was one can make any irrational argument if you pick an appropriately
inappropriate criteria to measure against. So we use a 35 MPH zone and
ignore the rest.

Sure, they are better but if you recall my plans for
doughnuts in your back yard, well the front-wheel drive
kinda kills that idea.

It's a popular politician's trick (as is overstating a case to the point of
absurdity).

You're pretty daring bringing politics into a discussion.
What will the trolls think?

You're going to pay for it whether code gets better or worse

Not necessarily true, I actively seek smaller apps that will
fit my needs... and still use Office 97 more than the newer
versions even though I've a license for O2K/XP. Seems that
along with the bloat, Excell leaves crap behind in
spreadsheets that can only be removed with '97 verison or
manually editing them which I do hate to do. Probably a
patch somewhere for that, don't care enough to look since
'97 does the job.

and the
coding, on average, is going to be whatever 'the state of the art' is. If
it isn't then that company looses market share and/or goes out of business,
sooner or later, and the programmer is out of a job.

You might be making a leap there about state-of-the-art
coding. Might it be just the opposite, that they're not at
all using state of the art coding and this is why we have
massive bloat? Consider how many 1MB-15MB apps are out
there, then what more some of the massive Adobe, Macromedia,
and Microsoft apps do. Even when you choose minimal
installs it insists on dozens of MB. I suppose it's a
matter of choice, I choose to avoid them even with ample
memory and HDD space... but then that may be part of why I
always have plenty of both without having to go to extra
measures to get there. I'm a big fan of only upgrading for
a need, not just to have the latest apps. Could partialy be
because I don't have to fool with warez I suppose, over the
years have accumulated plenty of stuff.

But you're inventing a new argument. His was not a '10%' musing of the
margins. It's absolute: "all... has been absorbed." Praise be to Landru.

True.

 

[CBFalconer]

I don't feel it would cost more nor have fewer features.
Cost is somewhat fixed, what the market will bear someone
buys the application(s) without foreknowledge of the bloat.

As for features, yes I'd be willing to do without the
features that seem to take up hundreds of MB of space, since
an entire office suite can take up under 50MB.

I, for one, usually prefer simpler programs which are properly
controllable. The general Unix philosophy of connecting simple
things with scripts and pipes is far more flexible, understandable,
and controllable. Not to mention more accurate.

 

[Phil Weldon]

I don't feel it would cost more nor have fewer features.

Cost is somewhat fixed, what the market will bear someone
buys the application(s) without foreknowledge of the bloat.

What you feel may not be true (assuming you are thinking of large programs
and operating systems.) There is a very good economic reason programs and
operating systems are get larger. In 1966 computer time (for a
mid-top-range computer) cost $200 US per hour. In 1966, programmer time
(for a mid-top-range computer) cost $4 US per hour. Programs were very
small, and a lot of people time was spent specifically to make those
programs small. Speed was sacrificed for small size. The size and shape
(features) of software was constrained by programming cost vs. computer
facility time, memory storage size, mass storage size, processing speed, and
mass storage speed. Every single one of these factors has changed
dramatically.

Completely new capabilities have arisen. Almost all processing used to be
in 'batch mode'; real time interaction wasn't necessary. Many systems did
not even have interrupts. Displays were rows of lights, or at most, a 30
cps teletype. Magnetic tape storage was very low in density, 800, 1600, or
(gasp) 3200 bits per inch, 8 or 9 tracks; 1 INCH long data blocks, 1/2 INCH
interblock gap. Not a whole lot of code is necessary for such low densities
and I/O speed.

If you REALLY want smaller code, then what do you want to give up?
If you REALLY want smaller code, then why not have applications that only
have the capabilities YOU use?
If you REALLY want smaller code, then why not write your own applications,
or hire system analysts and programmers (and testing and quality control
personel)?

Is it better to have capabilities you MIGHT need, or to save 1 Gbyte hard
drive storage (at a cost of $1 US)? Capabilities you don't need at the
present are probably in use by others, and might be needed by you in the
future.

Try making a list of the capabilities you are willing to forego, and then
compare against similar lists by other users.
Examples
1. I'd be quite willing to forego grammar checking in 'Word'.
2. I'd be quite willing to forego working on spreadsheets within
'Word'.
3. I'd really, really like to lose many capabilites in Adobe Reader.
4. I am NOT willing to forego viewing html in email and websites.
But
1. Some users may actually think 'Word' grammar checking is useful.
2. Some users may feel that manipulating spreadsheets within 'Word'
boosts productivity.
3. Well, Adobe Reader is free, so ...
4. Some users seem quite happy with text only.

The two sample lists above bring up still another important point. Once
there were thousands of computer users and thousands of very specific, well
defined uses. Now, the majority of the population, middle school or above,
in each industrial country is a user, each with a general list of flexible
tasks.

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Software expands to fill available space' paraphrases a famous statement.
It just wouldn't have the same snap if Parkinson had sacrificed expressing
the higher truth for logical completeness B^)

"The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002."

"Work expands to fill the time available for its completion."

A proverb coined by the twentieth-century British scholar C. Northcote
Parkinson, known as Parkinson's Law. It points out that people usually take
all the time allotted (and frequently more) to accomplish any task. 1

I think it is no possible to state "Threads expand to fill available
interest." and "Crossposting expands to more than fill available
interest."

 

[Phil Weldon]

Don't forget the other extreme the head-per-track magnetic drum, the
multi-disk, single head RAMDAC from IBM circa 1964
..
..
..

Oh yeah, drums. The ones with heads all over the place were impressive,
and expensive as all get out.

The strangest 'disk drive' I ran across was a real old one, still in
service, that was a huge 30 inch, or so, diameter aluminum disc mounted
vertically. Capacity was something like 250K.

..
..
..

 

[Phil Weldon]

Installed Base.

No, it just proves that someone a long time ago thought it was a good idea
and no one has thought otherwise. BTW, there are other ways to do it that
doesn't require using memory addresses, it's just more transparent to the
current processor architecture.

 

[Mxsmanic]

And all the advancements in automobiles over the past 100 years have been
'wasted' because one still can't go faster than 35 MPH in a 35 MPH speed zone.

Not all, but certainly those related to higher maximum speeds.

And since you think "all the additional hardware horsepower has been
absorbed by bloat" then why don't you run DOS on a 386 and do your video
editing with it?

Nobody sells 386 machines any more, and no current software runs on
them. I prefer a GUI for desktops, anyway. The GUI absorbs a huge
amount of machine capacity, though.

 

[Mxsmanic]

I, for one, usually prefer simpler programs which are properly
controllable. The general Unix philosophy of connecting simple
things with scripts and pipes is far more flexible, understandable,
and controllable. Not to mention more accurate.

And more dangerous from a security standpoint, since such features have
all sorts of side effects.

 

[Mxsmanic]

I think the problem, if there really is one, is existential. That is,
it is a part of the nature of computers to expand, both in terms of
h/w and s/w.

Computers are not living creatures, so they have no nature.

 

[Mxsmanic]

But there is no way you could do the image manipulation done by
something like modern Photoshop on a 10 y/o PC.

I can use Photoshop 5.x on an 8-year-old PC, however.

Photoshop is a special case, though. About 95% of current applications
could be (and were) carried out on PCs 15 years ago.

The same goes for modern games.

Games are also a niche market.

OCR is has made huge improvements due to more CPU cycles and memory.

See above.

In XP you can turn off most of the eye candy and turn off lots of
unnecessary processes to bring interactive performance back to
acceptable.

As long as you are using a GUI, most of the system's horsepower is being
used to drive it.

The people that complain about sluggish interactive response, IMO,
frequently have machines full of spyware and the little "helper
applications" that come with consumer devices like printers and
digicams. G*d know, Dell PCs come with lots of this crap preinstalled.

Disk drives are a major source of delay on any system.

I'm told that the huge address spaces in 64 bit systems will bring
large improvements of AI-ish appls like voice recognition.

They will bring software that won't run in less than 100 GB of RAM and
will require 20 blue-light DVDs to install.