Michael.Burton@p3.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Michael Burton) (01/06/91)
Erik Kennedy wrote: EK> Since memory is cheap these days, and virtual memory will supply EK> up to 4 gigs of pseudoRAM, there's little motivation for developers EK> to be memory efficient. I almost hope there's another memory EK> shortage soon. Aghh!! No!!! I agree with your disdain for developers who have decided that RAM is sufficiently cheap now that there's no need to make an effort to make efficient use of memory. Programs that sprawl across several megs of RAM (and an equally vast allocation of disk space) bother me. I'm even more upset by developers who don't take the time to make their software run at a reasonable speed. I think the programmers at Paragon Concepts (publishers of Nisus) should compile their stuff on an 8-Meg IIfx, but test it on a 1-Meg Mac Plus. Unfortunately, too many developers now seem to do all their testing on supercharged hardware. I did my first serious programming in 6502 assembly code on an Apple //e. As my skills grew, I enjoyed tweaking my code to knock out a few clock cycles or cut out a few bytes of code. I learned that's there's often a trade-off between fast execution and small memory usage--I called it "sprawl vs. crawl." It's depressing to see how many Mac programs sprawl over several megs of RAM, and STILL creep along at a snail's pace. Nevertheless, P-L-E-A-S-E don't wish cheap RAM away!! -- Michael Burton via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!200.3!Michael.Burton INET: Michael.Burton@p3.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG