There's some idiotic programmers out there who think that any CPU and memory that is not being utilized is being wasted.. so this is an excuse to make a button click event require 3300MHZ.
This is equivalent to saying that any horse power and gas in a car goes unused if you don't have the pedal to the floor all the time.. so when you are in busy traffic with lots of red lights and stop signs, simply punt the gas pedal and keep it held down.. then when you crash other programs that get in your way since you are hogging up so many highway lanes, swerving in and out... you'll be fine.. as long as you hold the pedal down and waste as much gas and horse power as you can.
Idle CPU is wasted CPU.. so if you do find the car stopped at a red light, be sure to rev the car up to a minimum of 10,000 RPM's. Put the handbrake on and brakes on and let the clutch out while you have it at 10,000 RPMs but don't let the car move since the light is red.. just keep those tires burning rubber until it is green. Idle horsepower is just wasted horsepower - always keep your engine revved to max so that it is just about putting a crack in the head or blowing gaskets. An engine that is not blown up and overheated is simply a wasted engine not being put to good use.
When your electrical bill comes in the mail, or your gas bill.. don't be scared. Your wallet is useless if you aren't using it. If you have lots of money in your wallet you are wasting that money because it is sitting in there doing nothing. Money can only be considered useful if you've spent all of it. If you starve to death that's your own damn problem for choosing Java/C++ in the first place.
Real World Example
The software today.. such as Aol Instant Messenger and MSN internet messenger clogs up and slows down my 800Mhz CPU when I click things. It's responsive, but not super responsive like you would think.. with modern computers.
Why does it take 800MHZ for a chat messenger program to run half-responsively? It's sending text over a pipe, for creeps sake. That's all it does. It opens a socket and sends text. So why pray tell does it clog up my CPU fan with brown poo when I click things on MSN?
(Part of it is unoptimized graphics caching... and unoptimized screen drawing.)
When I right click the AIM icon in my tray it slows down the computer in an extremely noticeable manner.. and the menu does not pop up cleanly.. it sort of slowly chugs along and unevenly loads itself onto the screen. Same with the windows start menu and quick launch menu. It's annoying.. considering technology is supposed to improve.
Back in the crappy Windows 95 days.. a menu would load fast on the screen. Now they are getting slower. It should be the opposite. Yes I realize we have improved GUI's now and that an improved GUI should be slower in theory on the same hardware.. but I'm not on the same hardware. I was using a pentium 166 in Win95 and now people are using a 2Ghz-3Ghz with dog slow Windows Vista/XP or KDE desktops.
(the reason I use MSN/AOL is because some clients or customers or programmers are using this service that I have to speak to at times. Freeware Gnu Garbageware alternatives such as GAIM and Trillian are even slower bloated crap)
A Right Click Should Be Fast
But it isn't today. I'd expect with today's processors that a simple right click menu loading operation would be instant.. and I'd expect it not to take 200 watts of electricity to load a menu item. Some people will argue that I should clean my registry and clean my "Send To" menu. Blah blah, who has time for that? Computers are supposed to be automating our lives.
The "Send To" menu should be CACHED so that I don't have to clean it up all the time. I don't even use the menu and it is still slow. I don't even add stuff to it, wherever possible. Even if I did add stuff to it, I expect it to be fast since it is a feature in the operating system.. what is the poitn of a feature if you are always trying to clean stuff from the feature and delete the feature?
For those readers who are thinking..
'huh? he needs to get a faster computer.. and remove the spyware
from his PC.. something is wrong.. that doesn't happen on mine!'
Incorrect. This is the typical response from a brainwashed microsoft or KDE cult member. I have no spyware on my PC. My PC is very clean since I'm an expert when it comes to system administration. I have no viruses or spyware on my PC. I'm talking about the initial standard and stock installation of MSN/AIM.
You may not notice this slow loading right click since you are so brainwashed and used to slow bloated software.
Many ignorant software users put up with this slow bloated crap and become overly optimistic..
bah I'll get a new laptop next year, this isn't that bad.. 500
watts to load the menu.. that's not bad.. next year it will take 1200 watts to
load the menu when I right click.. that's the way it is and I'm happy bout it. No
sense being a minimalist or anything.. my computer SHOULD take up as much
electricity as my 1500 watt heater! Anyone who thinks otherwise should upgrade
their computer or get a new faster one. And hard drive and swap space is
cheap, and so is memory, so if it takes 1GB of memory to load the buttonclick
event then so be it.
Which, if that is what you are thinking (and I've even continually been told by Florian Klamphl that I need to get a new "faster" computer several times on mailing lists and IRC), then you've missed the entire point of my article and you haven't read Niklaus Wirth articles from the 1990's and recent.
What is the world coming to now that computers are getting slower and slower even though cpu's are getting faster?
Linux/X11/KDE is also becoming bloatware, sadly.. even moreso than MS Windows in many cases.
Good News
Thank goodness for projects like OpenBSD where minimalism is not a sin.
Thank goodness for web programmers who build frameworks for large servers where footprint and resource use is still a factor in the API.
Niklaus Wirth himself has several articles about the stupidity of current programmers and why software bloat always exceeds what CPU's can keep up with.
I Still Use Old Hardware
I have an old 133Mhz laptop that I use for many miscellaneous tasks with OpenBSD on it.. and I could never ever use Windows 2000 or even Windows ME or Windows 98 on it. This little laptop is extremely useful... and instead of say paying $3200 for a new laptop that doesn't even have a dedicated volume control dial, and instead of wasting plastic and throwing hardware in the dump.. I happen to happily use OpenBSD on the laptop.
Many people would crucify me for doing such a thing.
YOU MUST THROW THAT LAPTOP IN THE GARBAGE IF IT IS 2 OR MORE YEARS OLD. IMMEDIATELY THE LAPTOP BECOMES USELESS AS SOON AS 2 YEARS PASS BY. GO OUT AND BUY A NEW LAPTOP NOW BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T THEN YOU ARE A RETARD.
What kind of materialistic, bloated, idiotic society are we living in? People get ridiculed for reusing useful hardware that is a few years old instead of encouraged. This is like encouraging people to NOT RECYCLE because RECYCLING IS FOR WIMPS! Garbage dumps and oil is cheap.. forget riding your bike or walking over to your friends house.. just drive your SUV (sport utility vehicle) over even it it is a nice warm day. You need that extra trunk space (hard drive space) to carry all the lumber over to your friends house every time you go over.. since you are constantly carrying thousands of kilograms of lumber to your friend's house!
What is the world coming to? Why are people so stupid? Or should I say pargent?
Should everyone get divorced every 2 years and get a new wife with more breast space each year since a breast can only get bigger and she can only get faster at doing the dishes? Oh, now I understand. I see where everyone is at. Throw her away! Get a new one. Brush that old one under the table. And brainwash everyone else into thinking everything is good and no worries. Remain optimistic and positive about hard drive space and CPU, instead of admitting the truth.
I'd rather see CPU/Hard drive space be put to good use.. such as super computers doing lots of calculations.. than it be wasted on AOL/MSN menus and right clicks, thank you very much.
p.s. the sexist breast/dishes remark was not something I believe in, but rather a humorous comparison to "stupid society" and hard drive space. I was just comparing ridiculousness to ridiculousness for the effect... For your information, I do dishes and cook, and prefer to share roles. And no, I don't think women are here on earth "just to do dishes".. as I said: as a man, I do them and don't even mind actually (if stuff isn't baked on really well, that is).
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