Bloat costs

[Brian Pane]

In article <1990Jun1.200333.10672 at pmsmam.uucp> wwm at pmsmam.UUCP (Bill Meahan) writes:
>In article <WSD.90Jun1130958 at miles.cs.brown.edu> wsd at cs.brown.edu (Wm. Scott `Spot' Draves) writes:
>>In article <266577FA.6D99 at tct.uucp> chip at tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>>   According to jtc at van-bc.UUCP (J.T. Conklin):
>>
>>  [stuff deleted]
>>
>>One of the wonderful things about 20Mip 32Mb workstations is that I
>>don't have to worry about eff. when writing most code.  I can
>>concentrate on other issues such as clarity of code, speed of
>>execution, speed of development, fancy features, ...
>>
>>by "eff." i mean "frugal of code and data".
>>
>
>May I be among the first to say HORSEPUCKY!
>
>There seems to be a mindset among many CS majors that
>"memory is cheap and hardware is fast, so why worry about efficiency?"
>
>This kind of thinking is the result of looking only at chip prices and
>the latest hot-rod announcements.  In truth, only a SMALL subset of the

If such a mindset exists, it is not because of the abundance of powerful
hardware.  It is because CS majors are taught to build robust, maintainable,
and therefore seemingly elegant programs rather than compact and clever
programs.  If we get used to writing ruthlessly brilliant programs,
we'll only add to the "software crisis" when we graduate.

I agree that efficiency is important, but  it must be kept in
its proper perspective.  This group is devoted to the implementation
of a UNIX-like OS on an architecture that should have been allowed to
die ten years ago.  No matter how well you write your C code, an average
compiler will probably produce disgracefully slow executables.  There
is little to be gained by writing efficient C programs for inefficient
machines.  You *can* write fairly efficient code for the 8086--in
assembly language.  However, few people have that much time to waste.
While you're shouting about the expense of "improved" software and the
expense of the hardware on which such software must run, don't forget
about the cost of programmer time.

Finally, note that large and "inefficient" programs advance the state
of the art in software more often than small and clever programs.
Consider X Windows.  It is a huge system designed for flexibility
rather than efficiency, and it requires significant hardware power,
but it has revolutionized the way we use computers.

>Maybe all CS majors should be forced to take a few economics courses along
>with the rest of their curriculum!
>
Don't blame us for the economic problems of software development; blame the
EE's who design the hardware.  With an orthogonal architecture and a
good compiler, you can write maintainable programs in high-level languages
and still produce products that run quickly on machines with a lot fewer
than 20 MIPS.


>FAST, SMALL, CHEAP   <--- Pick any 2, you can't have all 3.
Not yet.  And not ever, if we all devote our efforts to
optimizing tiny programs for tiny machines.  20-MIPS
workstations will become affordable only when lots of software
is available for them.

>Bill Meahan  WA8TZG		uunet!mailrus!umich!pmsmam!wwm
>I speak only for myself - even my daughter's cat won't let me speak for her!

-Brian F. Pane
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Brian Pane	University of Florida Department of Computer Science
bp at beach.cis.ufl.edu		Class of 1991

"If you can keep your expectations tiny,
 you'll get through life without being so whiny" - Matt Groening

#ifdef OFFENDED_ANYONE
#  include "disclaimer.h"
// Sorry to indulge in such 8086-bashing, folks, but I had a point to make.
#endif
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