Bloat costs

[Chip Salzenberg]

According to jtc at van-bc.UUCP (J.T. Conklin):
>I'm sure that many faster algorithms had to be passed by because
>of limited address space.  Some of the GNU equivelents of UNIX
>programs are many times faster because of the faster, yet more
>memory intensive, algorithms.

However, as has been pointed out before, the memory isn't
free, paging takes time, swap space isn't free, etc.  At the
very least, where practical, programs with memory-eating
algorithms should include a more frugal algorithm as an
option.  IMHO, of course.

>Another unrelated application is high resolution image processing.  Is
>procesing 16MB frame-buffer with kerjillions of processors doing ray-
>tracing wasting mmoryy?

Well, there are exceptions to every rule.  :-)

>On the other hand, there is something to be said about giving
>beginning programmers 6 MHz Xenix/286 machines to work on.

Amen.
-- 
Chip, the new t.b answer man    <chip%tct at ateng.com>, <uunet!ateng!tct!chip>