> software grows more demanding over time.

Nah. Adding more features to software doesn’t make software run slower. The problem is that software developers only optimise enough to make it run fast on our own computers. Because we keep getting new computers, we get lazier over time and software gets slower.

Electron is the most obvious example of this sort of thing, but examples are everywhere once you start looking.

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BobbyTables2 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That may be true but it did get slower. Maybe new fancy UI effects, etc.

Apple also seems hellbent on fully utilizing all available space on the low end model. IOS+ System Data is about 30GB.

The original iPhone had a 4GB model and had space left over for the user to use!

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josephg 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> That may be true but it did get slower.

Yes. Microsoft is scrambling at the moment because the macbook neo only has 8gb of ram and runs great. Windows 11 can't compete on that hardware because it's so bloated.

I find it strange given microsoft made windows 3.11, which ran fine on computers with just 4mb of ram. Windows 11 is of course more complex than windows 3.11. But not so much that it should need literally 2000 times as much ram.

In some ways, the memory apocalypse is a great thing. The windows start menu should never have been made in javascript and react. I'm hoping our industry uses this as a push to make our software small and fast again. If ram is 5x more expensive, we should aim to make 2gb of ram be more than enough for regular computing tasks.

	▲	15155 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Windows XP (NT lineage) was easily stripped down to less than 50-100MB of both memory and disk space.
	▲	StilesCrisis 18 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		TIL that the Recommended section of the Start menu uses React Native. What a world. Why...??

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preg_match 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree, it’s not a natural phenomenon per-se and it is getting worse. I think this consumer hardware problem will actually help get us back on track, to a degree.