Post 925253 by fribbledom@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by fribbledom@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #925253 by fribbledom@mastodon.social
2018-11-02T16:07:52Z
4 likes, 6 repeats
May's Law:Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore’s Law.
(DIR) Post #925254 by mookie@trblmkr.net
2018-11-02T16:14:36.134571Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fribbledom By my observations, the efficiency of software is less now that we have everything running in the cloud :)"Software's slow... Ah, just add another instance to the cluster!"
(DIR) Post #925382 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-02T16:20:43Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fribbledom May who?
(DIR) Post #925403 by fribbledom@mastodon.social
2018-11-02T16:21:58Z
2 likes, 1 repeats
@kragenDavid May: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_May_%28computer_scientist%29
(DIR) Post #926037 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T16:11:54Z
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@fribbledom No, I think it's not that simple. I think that current devs are not the equal of their intellectual forebearers.Previous generations of devs had to work miracles in highly constrained environments, often working very hard to optimize their code effectively. In the era of "cheap' CPU and RAM, nearly everyone has forgotten the art of optimization.Seriously, go ask a modern dev to describe the functionality of a specific CPU register of your choice and see what he says.
(DIR) Post #926038 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-02T17:01:02Z
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@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom I think you mean "forebears".If you asked a non-modern dev to describe the functionality of a specific JRE library function or CSS selector, they'd also have trouble. If you're measuring by knowledge in terms of what you can recite, modern devs probably know as much, if not more, than programmers from the 1980s. But it's different stuff.(Also, though, programming isn't about reciting facts. It's about creating things.)
(DIR) Post #926088 by emsenn@mastodon.social
2018-11-02T17:02:50Z
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@kragen @profoundlynerdy @fribbledom Let's not forget by comparing new and old devs, you're comparing people with ~<5 years and ~>20 years of experience, respectively. Add in survivor bias, and the only conclusion you should draw is any comparison is unfair.
(DIR) Post #926359 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T17:10:02Z
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@emsenn @kragen @fribbledom That argument has some basis in fact. But, if you pick up an old copy of Byte or Compute! from the type-in program era you'll see that even back then, when this elder crop of programmers was in their youth, there was an astounding depth of knowledge compared to today.Now sure, it may just be that the people to get widely published were the "cream of the crop sorts" and I'm comparing them to the average dev blogger today with a lower barrier of entry. False equivalence? Maybe.
(DIR) Post #926360 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-02T17:13:49Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@profoundlynerdy @emsenn @fribbledom I don't know, I was a programmer in that era and I was pretty shitty. (I think I've gotten better.) And I knew a lot of shitty programmers. Some of them even wrote articles.I do think there's a lower barrier to entry now that permits more "casual programmers" to do useful things.
(DIR) Post #926564 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T17:21:57Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kragen @emsenn @fribbledom Oh, okay. Fair enough. I was the poor kid who got his hands on 8-bit computers and kept them running well in to the 90's. I wrote school papers and typed in a lot of programs from the likes of RUN... So, I may be seeing your generation through rose colored glasses. I learned a lot from you folks and have a carrier in IT because of it. I still remember when I prayed for the things I now have.
(DIR) Post #926744 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T17:30:08Z
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@kragen @emsenn @fribbledom I agree with you.When I first started studying Python in earnest one my first questions was, "What separates a guy who can script Python from an actual true developer? What do they know that others do not?"Five minutes later we were talking about data structures, algorithms, and the Gang of Four Design Patterns book.
(DIR) Post #926856 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-02T17:36:57Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@profoundlynerdy @emsenn @fribbledom We're likely from the same generation; I was born in 1976.
(DIR) Post #926926 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T17:39:43Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kragen @emsenn @fribbledom I'm a bit younger, but yeah, the tail end of Gen X.You came off as older than that. Many of the people I have conversations with about 8-bit machines aren't even gray beards, they're white beards!
(DIR) Post #927187 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-02T17:51:04Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@profoundlynerdy @emsenn @fribbledom Well, I have pretty broad interests.
(DIR) Post #927672 by captainbland@social.coop
2018-11-02T18:06:11Z
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@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom That might be true, although I think there's a big functionality/performance tradeoff. While some modern abstractions cost a lot in performance, more features get added because the work is less error-prone and there's less reinventing the wheel. Ultimately this is about what the industry is demanding from programmers rather than some innate inability to memorise registers or what have you.
(DIR) Post #927673 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T18:13:02Z
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@captainbland @fribbledom Also a fair argument.That said, I still cringe whenever I hear of some company replacing their legacy COBOL applications with theoretically equivalent Java code.While COBOL isn't bullet proof and can certainly ABEND (terminate abnormally) the solution for the Java crowd always seems to be "Hmm... I don't know, try restarting the JVM."
(DIR) Post #927800 by captainbland@social.coop
2018-11-02T18:19:15Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom hey now that's unfair, if your process doesn't terminate properly all you have to do is determine the correct PID from your twelve identically named "java" processes and kill it. 😂
(DIR) Post #928680 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T19:05:46Z
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@captainbland @fribbledom Isn't that the truth.
(DIR) Post #929330 by apLundell@octodon.social
2018-11-02T19:38:26Z
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@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom Ok, but go back in time to 1980 and ask a programmer to describe how he'd implement an internet-enabled service with cloud backups.You're not asking for programmers as knowledgeable as ones from the 80s, you're asking for some union of both sets of knowledge and experience.That's going to be rare in any era.
(DIR) Post #929385 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T19:41:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@apLundell @fribbledom At 300-1200 bps, he wouldn't have the bandwidth to do any of that. Not withstanding the math of the situation, I get your point.
(DIR) Post #937830 by mala@mastodon.social
2018-11-03T04:26:13Z
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@profoundlynerdy @kragen @emsenn @fribbledom I know a few people who later worked with some of the famous coders of the 70s and 80s — some stories of skills, but some really bad ones too. And looking through old computer mag back issues, I tend to see the bad articles (and shoddy looking advertised software!) more than the best ones...
(DIR) Post #940634 by js@mstdn.io
2018-11-03T09:41:17Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom The era of specific CPU registers is long gone. Very few special purpose registers remain.
(DIR) Post #940706 by veer66@toot.veer66.rocks
2018-11-03T09:50:20.385857Z
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@js @fribbledom @profoundlynerdy CPUs nowadays seem to translate machine code again internally?
(DIR) Post #940710 by js@mstdn.io
2018-11-03T09:50:49Z
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@kragen @profoundlynerdy @fribbledom You’re making it sound as if one could not do both. I can write assembly and JavaScript.
(DIR) Post #940755 by js@mstdn.io
2018-11-03T09:55:18Z
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@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom Also, ask a modern dev about cache lines. This did not exist back then and allows you a lot of optimization today. The difference is not time. The difference is people who care for performance and details about how things work vs. people who don’t give a shit and quickly want to get something done that falls apart next week.
(DIR) Post #941765 by js@mstdn.io
2018-11-03T09:53:20Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@veer66 @fribbledom @profoundlynerdy That as well. But the times where ax (eax, rax) are strictly the accumulator are over. We left that behind with the 8 bitters. Even in x86 this was just a name, while in 6502, registers were still restricted to certain purposes. Today RISC has won. Lots of general purpose registers. Even x86 is translated to RISC-like instructions internally by the CPU these days.
(DIR) Post #943402 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-03T13:36:11Z
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@veer66 @js @fribbledom Sort of: on the whole most Intel CPUs use CISC instructions as, well, basically macros for lower level RISC instructions for performance reasons. I'm not sure if all of this is defined at the microcode level or not, I'm sure some of it must be.So, CISCS persists but RISC is the real winner here.
(DIR) Post #944010 by js@mstdn.io
2018-11-03T14:11:13Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@profoundlynerdy @veer66 @fribbledom Almost all instructions are translated, only the most basic ones have a 1:1 translation, most others get translated into several microcode instructions.
(DIR) Post #947814 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-03T17:45:30Z
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@js @profoundlynerdy @fribbledom Sure, I can write assembly and JS too. I didn't mean to imply you can't do both. I just meant that nobody in 1985 was writing JS. (And don't tell me the VMS orange manuals were longer than the HTML5 spec. They weren't.)
(DIR) Post #947826 by kragen@nerdculture.de
2018-11-03T17:46:47Z
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@mala @profoundlynerdy @emsenn @fribbledom Yeah, and the famous coders tended to be the better ones; I've known a number of people who were mediocre programmers in the 1980s and then never got better.
(DIR) Post #949039 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-03T19:03:24Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@mala @kragen @emsenn @fribbledom Yeah, some of those ads are heartburn inducing.
(DIR) Post #1008751 by rick_777@cybre.space
2018-11-06T12:48:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@profoundlynerdyI recall reading that Minecraft was horribly designed, using structs when words could suffice. As a result, performance suffered horribly.@fribbledom
(DIR) Post #1008777 by dlek@x0r.be
2018-11-02T16:16:44Z
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@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom I don't remember everything I learned about registers and etc. and certainly don't keep up to date on that stuff, but I do remember lessons I learned about efficiency, which is definitely part of the craft. But the number of times I've heard, "eh, computers are getting faster"--No! This kind of laziness is what keeps the benefits of these faster computers from getting to the users. (Also part of the fun for me is finding the elegant sollution.)
(DIR) Post #1008778 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-02T16:22:37Z
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@dlek @fribbledom This is all so fresh in my mind. I'm in the process of drafting a CS course now. I start with the abacus and ask "what's the simplest general purpose digital computer you could build."Making me think about registers and clock cycles has forced me to revisit some assembly. I've been fiddling with MOS 6502 assembly for days and not writing as much of my course draft as I should have. Hahaha! First World problems.
(DIR) Post #1008779 by rick_777@cybre.space
2018-11-06T12:50:04Z
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@profoundlynerdyYou know, forcing the kids to program a game in a limited system like a C64 would be a great idea to teach them programming.@dlek @fribbledom
(DIR) Post #1008813 by rick_777@cybre.space
2018-11-06T12:52:22Z
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@profoundlynerdyHave you heard of @ky0ko ? Girl's writing a 6502 emulator for fun, with video and everything.@dlek @fribbledom
(DIR) Post #1008903 by Argus@mastodon.technology
2018-11-06T12:58:40Z
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@profoundlynerdy @fribbledom I see your point but I wonder if it puts things in the proper light. Modern developers might not need to work small and efficient and can create more complex and powerful products. Super Mario 64 is 8 megs; Dark Souls III is almost 20 Gigs; neither the small nor the large is necessarily superior, their developers simply had a different environment to work with.
(DIR) Post #1009071 by profoundlynerdy@mastodon.technology
2018-11-06T13:15:42Z
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@rick_777 @ky0ko @dlek @fribbledom Nope! Thanks for the tip!