"bearophile" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]... > Nick Sabalausky: >> I often wonder how much faster and more >> memory-efficient things like linux and the web could have been if they >> weren't so big on sticking damn near everything into "convenient" text >> formats. > > Maybe not much, because today textual files can be compressed and > decomperssed on the fly. CPUs are now fast enough that even with > compression the I/O is usually the bottleneck anyway. >
I've become more and more wary of this "CPUs are now fast enough..." phrase that keeps getting tossed around these days. The problem is, that argument gets used SO much, that on this fastest computer I've ever owned, I've actually experienced *basic text-entry boxes* (with no real bells or whistles or anything) that had *seconds* of delay. That never once happened to me on my "slow" Apple 2. The unfortunate truth is that the speed and memory of modern systems are constantly getting used to rationalize shoddy bloatware practices and we wind up with systems that are even *slower* than they were back on less-powerful hardware. It's pathetic, and drives me absolutely nuts.
