Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:11:55 -0800, Walter Bright wrote: > Justin Johansson wrote: >> Generally speaking on the substance of the remarks on this thread (as >> below; retard et. al) ... >> >> especially ... >> > Unfortunately computer programs seem to inflate over time. A typical >> > program doubles its size in 2-3 years. I would understand this if a >> > tradeoff was made between size and performance but unfortunately >> > many programs also perform worse than before. >> >> >> The blot is called marketing and is the hallmark of a capitalistic, >> consumerist, non-green and resource-unsustainable society. > > > It's generally a problem with the difference between what people say > they want and what they'll spend money on. They say they want a stripper > but over and over they buy the fully optioned version. > > I few years ago, I was looking to buy a pickup truck but instead got a > used commercial van. It's very interesting how different it is from a > consumer van. The commercial one is a "stripper" - nothing but what it > needs to get the job done. No radio, no stereo, no cupholder, no > electric windows, no A/C, no heated seats, no glove box, no courtesy > lights, no cruise control, no chrome, no badges, no trim, no nothing but > what is needed to do its job. It's actually kind of neat-o. You can't > buy anything like that in the consumer catalog. > > (Back in the 80's, the Japanese car companies discovered that sales > increased if all the "options" were rolled into the base configuration.) > > The same goes for most consumer items. When was the last time you didn't > prefer buying a phone with the longest feature list?
But in any case the car analogy fails here. There are no open source cars. You have lots of choice when choosing applications. I prefer lightweight applications even on this >3.5 Ghz Core i7. rxvt or xterm over gnome-terminal, pan over thunderbird, awesome over metacity etc. The system feels lightning fast. I have no DRMs to worry about. I can also easily get rid of all user friendly crapware that Windows users have to endure. Unfortunately it seems I have hard time evading Wirth's law since most programs get larger and larger. If this trend continues, there is a physical limit on hardware capabilities, but applications will still continue on their road to doom.
