Less Is Moore

Hugh Pickens writes "For years, the computer industry has made steady progress by following Moore's law, derived from an observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore that the amount of computing power available at a particular price doubles every 18 months. The Economist reports however that in the midst of a recession, many companies would now prefer that computers get cheaper rather than more powerful, or by applying the flip side of Moore's law, do the same for less. A good example of this is virtualisation: using software to divide up a single server computer so that it can do the work of several, and is cheaper to run. Another example of 'good enough' computing is supplying 'software as a service,' via the Web, as done by Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Google, sacrificing the bells and whistles that are offered by conventional software that hardly anyone uses anyway. Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon: the next version of Windows is intended to do the same as the last version, Vista, but to run faster and use fewer resources. If so, it will be the first version of Windows that makes computers run faster than the previous version. That could be bad news for computer-makers, since users will be less inclined to upgrade — only proving that Moore's law has not been repealed, but that more people are taking the dividend it provides in cash, rather than processor cycles."

Comments

Let's see

[Rik Sweeney]

Less: 120884 bytes
More: 27752 bytes

Wow, that's right!

Re:Let's see

[Moridineas]

Even more literally..!

$ ls -i /usr/bin/less
3603778 /usr/bin/less
$ ls -i /usr/bin/more
3603778 /usr/bin/more

Re:Let's see

[Tibor the Hun]

All the windows experts are scratching their heads now.
That's OK, maybe that'll make them get off of our lawn too.

Re:Let's see

[blind biker]

Those don't exist, and our server has a peculiar way of letting me know that:
kosh ~ 3 % ls -l $(which Less)
ls: Less not found
ls: not not found
ls: found not found
:-D

Re:Let's see

[Faylone]

But if you know that, don't you have your OWN yard to have people get off of?

Re:Let's see

[RabidMoose]

But if you know that, don't you have your OWN yard to have people get off of?

Your basement has a lawn?

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Bad Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of "gravity, it's not just 14ft/sec^2, it's the law"

Where do you live?

Re:Faulty on many fronts

[RagingFuryBlack]

You just admitted to RTFA. This is /. Nobody RTFA here. Turn in your /. ID at the door. Thank you.

Re:Because you don't need more cycles in biz

[Tubal-Cain]

We reached the point of "fast enough" years ago. Computers were so fast we needed a semi-useful way to waste cpu cycles. And so the GUI was born.

Re:Because you don't need more cycles in biz

[QRDeNameland]

It's Moore's other law - once fast enough is achieved, you have to slow it down with shite like rounded 3d-effect buttons, smooth rolling semi-transparent fade-in-and-out menus and ray-traced 25 squillion polygon chat avatars.

Actually, that's Cole's Law, which states that an unused plate space must be occupied with cheap filler that no one really wants.

Re:Because you don't need more cycles in biz

[powerlord]

It's Moore's other law - once fast enough is achieved, you have to slow it down with shite like rounded 3d-effect buttons, smooth rolling semi-transparent fade-in-and-out menus and ray-traced 25 squillion polygon chat avatars.

Its usually expressed as Gate's Corollary to Moore's Law: Whatever Moore Giveth, Gates Taketh Away.

That's the second time this week...

[benjamindees]

This new phenomenon of people praising Windows ME on Slashdot is really beginning to worry me.

Re:This is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

...this is the computer becoming a throw-away consumer item like a toaster. (Running NetBSD obviously ;-) )

Which is running NetBSD, the computer or the toaster?

Re:Or that history repeats itself

[Al Al Cool J]

Or in other words, All this has happened before and will happen again. I believe that's Ronald D Moore's Law

Hmnn?

[Vexorian]

Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon: the next version of Windows is intended to do the same as the last version, Vista, but to run faster and use fewer resources. If so, it will be the first version of Windows that makes computers run faster than the previous version

1. Take random article from news site
2. Somehow manage to make it justify a new slashdot story that includes a link to ooold blog promoting windows 7.
3. ?????
4. Profit / Win laptop ?

How is vista seven related to this at all? It didn't get faster for doing less... That article states clearly that it is just using a more responsive interface, I mean, come on!...