On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:25 AM, dep <dep@...> wrote:
> what do we have now for our trouble? bling.

One of the reasons I am so glad that the Linux kernel and GNU tools
are used so widely, is that the people programming for phones, for
watches, for supercomputers, personal systems, are all working on what
is in essence a common code base.

The power-saving techniques of the battery-dependent are used by the
massive data-center-filling mega-blasters because power bills matter.

Even egotistical temper tantrums yield improvements to the central
kernel functions. (scheduler)

It would be nice if that same glorious lovingly hand optimized
attention was spent making the GUI code tighter, faster, cleaner. But
no, because there is no one GUI.

Like the automobile, each GUI programmer, each GUI style, each GUI
model-year, they change and fiddle and make things oh so very pretty
without concern for such trivial matters as actually getting work
done. So while you can find the Austen Mini of GUIs if you try, you're
much more likely to see huge tailfins and fancy radiator caps that
don't actually do anything to get the work done.

Bling. Bloat. Idle distractions.

> sorry -- letting off steam here. it's just that the increase of speed and
> power of machines has done little but allow programmers and programming
> languages to become sloppy. object-oriented programming has failed to live
> up to its promise.
>
> sure ain't what we expected!

Well said.

That apparent waste of resources is also why games have gotten more
and more graphical, more and more focused on "frames per second", and
less about actual game play.

What was done on two 5.25" floppy disks with StarFlight was
spectacular. What those programmers packed into such a small space
should serve to humble the people who call themselves "programmers"
today, the same way taking a helicopter to the top of Mt. Everest
cannot compare to the pioneers who walked the whole way.

The speed of hardware has eliminated any motivation to optimize the
user's interface.

> here endeth the rant (which is not aimed at TDE folk at all -- more at the
> KDE4.x craporama and its philosophical equivalents).
> --
> dep

Curt-