Re: Decline, was Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] new File called App notes
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Part of this is, of course, due to the size and cost of available memory.? Back then, software of any kind (usually) had to be compact and elegant just in order to fit into the available space.? Both my high school and JC instructors talked about the need for elegant and efficient code.? Now, memory is so cheap and spaces so immense, that code doesn't need to be well written.??
I remember working with a IT guy about 7 years ago on a a fairly simple program that formatted the output from one database so it could be read by another database.? His code was thousands of lines, and at least 50% were comments.? I couldn't follow what was going on even with the comments.? When asked about it, he grinned sheepishly and said "yeah, it's kind of a mess...".
The thing I really hate is when perfectly good, usable software gets updated just to keep the coders employed.? They usually end up breaking something or make it harder to use.? New features are not necessarily a good thing!
-Dave
? Also sometime in the 1970s, another moron, probably related to the one
described above, said "programmer time is more valuable than processor
time".? This similarly caused the laziest programmers to act as if
they'd be unchained, and the decline of computing efficiency, and caring
about same, began.? This is why modern OSs require multi-GHz clock
speeds and billions of bytes of memory just to boot, much less get any
work done.
? If I ever get my hands around the neck of either of these men, they
will have a difficult day.
????????????? -Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
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