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What's the point of lightweight code with modern computers? (liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org)
submitted 5 hours ago by codeinabox@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev
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[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Yeah, modern computers often feel like a scam. Obviously, some things are faster and obviously, we can calculate more complex problems.
But so often, programs are only optimized until they reach a level of "acceptable" pain. And especially with monopolistic, commercial software that level is close to infinity, because well, it's acceptable so long as customers don't switch to competitors.

Either way, the slowness that was acceptable twenty years ago is generally still acceptable today, so you get much of the same slowness despite being on a beefier PC.

[-] yggstyle@lemmy.world 40 points 4 hours ago

What's the point of being healthy when they have rascal scooters?

[-] nullPointer@programming.dev 17 points 4 hours ago

here I am, using my legs like a sucker.

[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

Not to judge, but you're supposed to walk on them, not suck them.

[-] talkingpumpkin@lemmy.world 30 points 4 hours ago

...and that's why you need 16GB and a decent CPU to navigate the web

[-] yggstyle@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

What is utterly stupid is with modern compression and rendering techniques - if it weren't for developers shipping a whole ass library to prod for one function that is simplifying 8 lines of code... 56k would still be usable for light browsing and access. It'd be slow still.. But far from literally impossible now.

The sheer amount of "fat" on some (most) sites and applications is just depressing.

[-] Blaster_M@lemmy.world -3 points 1 hour ago

Good luck watching a video on 56k

[-] yggstyle@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago* (last edited 21 minutes ago)

Seems someone said it before me... But you missed the point.

I'll respond to your statement generally though.

Basic survival on 56k was doable. Shoutcast or Pandora could even be streamed with occasional buffering while browsing more light, or less heavy, sites. On the topic of video - low quality 240 would be "manageable" again, thanks to modern compression.

Was it a good experience? Rarely. Was it passible? Certainly; and if a site optimised for load time and reduced bandwidth - it could even be near broadband "experience" with some caching tricks.

Im not saying everyone needs to be code gods and build a 96k fps... But optimizing comes from understanding what you are writing and how it works. All this bloat is the result of laziness and a looser grasp on the fundamentals. As to why we should take a harder look at optimization?

  • Datacenter / cloud costs are rising... Smaller footprint - smaller bill.

  • Worldwide hardware costs are rising... Less people will be building fire breathing monsters. Better optimization - better user experience - more users. Recent examples (of poor optimization:) fallout and early 2077.

[-] Trail@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

That's not what he is saying.

[-] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 1 points 50 minutes ago

I mean, the text on a website isn't the problem for not being able to use 56k.

It's only images and video that take up space, the libraries used on websites are all cached at this point so that's hardly relevant to ongoing usage of a website.

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 6 points 4 hours ago
  • The fastest code is the code you don't run.

Not really. The code can be slow, even if I do not run it. Also, sometimes additional code can do optimization (like caching), which is more code = faster. Or additional libraries, complexity and code paths can in example add multicore execution, which could speed up. So, I do not buy the less code is faster logic.

[-] Malgas@beehaw.org 4 points 2 hours ago

I think the most obvious example is loop unrolling. An unrolled loop can be many times more code, but runs faster because you're not updating a counter or doing conditional jumps.

[-] voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 hours ago

I think it really depends on what your code is doing. I do agree that less isn't always faster or as they mentioned in the post, safer. Taking a raw input is fast, but not very safe for a variety of reasons. I personally make "simple to understand" as the highest priority for my code.

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 2 points 3 hours ago

On a slightly different example, the suckless project has a huge emphasizes on lightweight code, which they call "suckless". I don't think in this case faster is the goal, but having less code and be simple as possible (not even configuration files allowed, you just recompile program) and almost no documentation in the code either. But the idea is the same, of having "lightweight" code.

this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
21 points (95.7% liked)

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