The Case for Acceptable Software Bloat in Modern Computing
By
senfiaj
6mo ago· 8 min readenInsight
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Golden Brown
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Pure flour-power. Hearty enough to carry you through lunch.
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Summary
The article argues that some software bloat is acceptable in modern computing environments where hardware resources are abundant. It challenges the obsession with optimization, suggesting that developer productivity, maintainability, and rapid prototyping should take priority over perfect efficiency. The piece references Donald Knuth's famous quote about premature optimization and examines the current state of software bloat, suggesting that while excessive bloat is problematic, some level of inefficiency is a reasonable trade-off for faster development and better software quality.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledPremature optimization is the root of all evil.
In the era of fast CPUs, gigabytes of RAM, and terabytes of storage software efficiency has become an overlooked thing.
Many believe there are less reasons to optimize software today, as processors are fast and memory is cheap.
They claim that we should focus on other things, such as developers' efficiency, maintainability, fast prototyping etc.
The software efficiency in an era of fast CPUs, gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of storage.
