On Wed, 2010-11-03 at 09:19 -0400, Kohei Yoshida wrote: > On Wed, 2010-11-03 at 12:50 +0000, Ian wrote: > > On Wed, 2010-11-03 at 07:09 -0400, Michael Meeks wrote: > > > > > > At least then it would run on any platform with a JVM eg cell phone > > > > > > Sure any cell-phone with a vast amount of RAM, and a CPU twice as fast > > > as those we have currently in desktops might give reasonable > > > performance. > > > > Ok, perhaps a daft suggestion but the principle is that all cell phones > > will have a vast amount of RAM and fast CPUs in the next 2 to 3 years. A > > gig of RAM is normal now, it would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. > > Personally, a mindset such as "RAM is cheap these days, so let's waste > it" troubles me as a developer.
Oh I agree, but the point I was making was that whether it is because RAM gets cheaper or code gets more efficient, at some point all general productivity tools are going to be available on cell phone technology. That means ARM and probably Android. BTW, I used to have an Acorn Archimedes computer running a full drag and drop GUI with outline fonts with sub-pixel anti-aliasing back in 1989. I ran a document publisher that was hand coded in ARM assembler. It ran from a floppy disk in 1 meg of RAM - an upgrade to 4 meg was Wow! Real time rotation of graphics in frames irregular shape frames for text formatting etc. So I appreciate the value of efficient coding. I'm rather depressed that I could do this 20 years ago and we seem to need 100 times the processing power and 1000 times the RAM to get similar results. > It's true that RAM is cheaper, but we > are not yet to the point where we no longer have to worry about runtime > RAM usage - far from it. > > Just like consumers have managed to find ways to fill ever-so-increasing > hard disk space, Actually I don't think many do. I have masses of unused disc space. Unless you are storing video libraries a 250 Gig hard drive is not very likely to get even half full. Writing software that forces machine upgrades has logic if you get a new OS sale for every new machine shipped. Even if not deliberate, the incentives are all in the wrong direction. > developers will find ways to use up ever-so-increasing > memory space (and I've seen enough evidence of it). So, we should > always be encouraging ourselves to reduce memory footprint, instead of > wasting it. > > BTW, I love C++, which is standardized enough, is not tied to any single > vendor, and can generate native code, not byte code. That is best as long as the compilers produce efficient code for the target CPUs most likely to be in the highest volume in the not too distant future. The principle of RISC technology is to focus on the 20% of instructions that get used 80% of the time. Maybe that should be an apps development philosophy too. > Just my opinion. Very valid :-) -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications A new approach to assessment for learning www.theINGOTs.org - 01827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to [email protected] Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
