Return Styles: Pseud0ch, Terminal, Valhalla, NES, Geocities, Blue Moon. Entire thread

Wirth's law

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 13:34

"Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster."
-- Niklaus Wirth (February 1995). "A Plea for Lean Software".

I think this is something we here on /prog/ can clearly see. Programmers keep making things more and more complex/bloated shit for no good reason. Almost nobody cares about lean, fast, responsive, optimized software. Sad times.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 16:31

>>24
I fully agree with you, but such a thing is far-fetched and would need hundreds of people working full-time to accomplish.
In the meantime, I'm happy to have dwm instead of gnome, st instead of xterm, musl instead of glibc, sbase instead of coreutils, etc. It at least minimizes the harm to a certain degree.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 16:39

>>24
I have to agree with >>25-san.

Rob Pike shares your idea and so do many of us. But your proposal is something that doesn't happen over night. For now, we better work with what we have.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 16:55

>>6
Does suckless need any help with tech evangelism or drawing up a code of conduct?

If so I can help.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 17:10

>>27
No, just programming help.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 17:21

>>25
"rotten foundations"

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 17:31

>>29
Better "rotten foundations" than "rotten everything".
Of course a suckless windowing system would be great.
Of course a suckless browser engine would be great.
But with the current manpower limitations, that's unattainable.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:21

Don't forget aiju!
I like his Chem program.
http://aiju.de/code/chem/

Name: >>31 2016-01-11 18:25

aijuboard too.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aijuboard#/
http://aiju.de/electronics/aijuboard/

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:28

Is this the reddit expat thread? We don't have to be told about this.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:33

>>31
I don't. Beside the batshit DSL, why require the angles for each edge? Can't it figure that out from the number of connections on each node?

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:33

>>33
We're just talking about simple/lean software. Chill out, fella!
By the way, you think you're great and all, but you don't even know how sage works. Lurk moar.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:34

>>35
>>33 presents a typical kneejerk reaction to >>1. Please ignore.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:37

>>34
I'm no chemist, but I think it could take different angles?
Also, you could want to represent it like this http://www.chem.wisc.edu/deptfiles/genchem/sstutorial/Text7/Tx73/AcOH.gif or this http://www.chem.wisc.edu/deptfiles/genchem/sstutorial/Text7/Tx73/AcOHa.gif
There could be a flag for using drawing one or the other.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:39

ACME's web server has always been a personal favorite in the past. Who remember thttpd?

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:44

>>34
That's the rub, isn't it?

Should software be simple & lean, or should it have niceties added? A nicety for one might be essential, while to another is just bloat.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:44

if suckless was serious about minimalism
they would switch to freedos
and make dos programs.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:50

>>39
Exactly!
There's a trade-off. Complexity VS Feature.
Is the feature of "deal automatically with angles" useful enough to justify adding a bit more complexity to the code base? Well, I guess it is! Because otherwise it's a big hurdle to do it manually. But adding a feature of, let's say, "output image in png, jpg, bmp and pdf" a good one? Probably not. Better keep it simple with a single output and you convert yourself if necessary.

The trade-off is not always so easy to reason about. But I think the suckless guys do a good enough job (from the tools I've used so far).

And minimalism is not only about features, but equally (if not more) importantly about how a feature is implemented.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:52

>>40
Suckless isn't about only minimalism.
It's about the trade-off between usability and minimalism as seen on >>41
Wanna go fully minimal? Then stop using the computer.
What suckless seeks is a minimal solution to computing, while keeping the most important features.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 18:58

>>39
Is a better input format necessary? Do I have to write a program myself just for the purpose of translating a more usable format to the one this program accepts?

Those are the question of feature vs. bloat.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 19:52

>>42
But for what purpose? To make your multigigahertz CPU work less? To make this more manual for you?

It might be a tradeoff between bugs and features, but I doubt it. This is a small team building new codebases with little time & use for maturation.

Their time would be better off doing things a new way, rather than rolling back the clock on today's software, which is effectively what they're doing.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 20:07

>>44
``a new way'' is the way people have been trying to do things for over half a century.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 20:29

>>35
you don't even know how sage works. Lurk moar.
Epic win /b/ro!

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-11 21:38

>>1 think about it as demand-creation:
Without new software requirements the hardware would
not exists. Imagine a world with lean,hyper-efficient
software with minimal features, but same old hardware.
The cost to create new chips/videocards/cpus cannot
be justified until there is demand for it.
That where bloatware comes in, it can barely run on
current hardware, but some newest expensive system
can do it without a hitch. Suddenly this expensive
system is in demand, and companies begin targeting
bloatware market with cheaper system by competing on
price and features. Supply follows demands.
Intel wouldn't even exist if not for an obscure
calculator company they got to design a chip for.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 0:34

>>45
Most of the half century has been trying to extend old ways. People stopped making new ways somewhere in the 1960s.

I guess the drugs helped? (but seriously, the lack of prior art meant they were unconstrained, unlike today)

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 0:42

>>47
Are you 18 yet, FrozenAnus?

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 5:29

>>36
I visited reddit yesterday. It was (still) terrible
did a quick nsfw search, because you know, just because..

mouths being used came up, and i thought, uhh, ok..

Have you seen how redittors use their mouths? It's no wonder i cannot post there

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 5:41

>>49
Age is just a number.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 5:51

=) major lazer - free
Reminds me of Mr Jitendra Malik ^^

ugh, i was supposed to be studying Crypto II with Dan Boneh about now =.

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 6:22

Probably my bad for distracting him with that factorial based crypto in crypto I ^^ c'mon danny bones!

P.S Redditors should make their way to lounge and rinse thoroughly with redcream

Name: !fig9A 2016-01-12 7:06

I don't think i'm going to get along with these redditor expats..
I'm too #nofilter for reddit and 8chan alike ^^

being non-pro-american and non-pro-asio was too much for either of 'em xD

Name: !fig9A 2016-01-12 7:17

And i like obama, but it's a bit like putting a smartie on top of a dog turd, for the most part it's just a waste of a smartie

Name: !fig9A 2016-01-12 8:07

Silly americans, what if instead of needing guns to protect you from a dud government, you just got rid of the dud government?

Name: Anonymous 2016-01-12 18:00

>>56
That's racist.
Newer Posts
Don't change these.
Name: Email:
Entire Thread Thread List
All trademarks and copyrights on this site are owned by their respective parties. All comments and posts are the responsibility of their own posters.
- Tinychan + 2ch Mode + RSS -