Am I running DOS so that I only have one task running at a certain moment, and now your app can simply suck up more CPU cycles than it really needs, and then claim it's waiting for me because I am a slow perk in typing? Well, that argument works in DOS age (or any non-multitasking environment).
The fact that the user will probably not notice the performance lost due to lazy code is true only when you are talking about one task. But when there are more than one task running, it really adds up, even when those are just "constant speed slow down" (i.e. asymptotically the same but differs in a "small" constant). Just look at, urr, whatever you want to name here.
I find it really annoying to hear programmers claiming their code only needs to be in "user speed" (being as fast as the user). That's not true at all these days. Any code, even the GUI code, should be _reasonably_ efficient or else I will only have to upgrade my CPU every year just because of lazy code.
Recently, I almost bought the BCB5 standard edition ($99) but then I put it down when I ran down the feature list---there is no class browser, something that I have been taken for granted as a refugee, in that edition. If I want a class browser, then I have to pay $399 instead.
This makes me think about how development tool companies like Borland should package their product. In Borland's case, they have almost everything I want in the standard edition, just exclude the class browser. Wouldn't it be nice if Borland actually doesn't create any edition at all but put out a check-list of features for the developer to choose from, with a separate price tag for each feature? (So in my case I will check the stuff in the standard edition and the class broswer.)
Similar strategy has been used by Adobe in their font collection. But I have to admit it's a very different product so maybe it works there but not here.
The same could have been done to Kylix here. They could first release the Kylix in the GPL version (and on that release day we will see a thread with ten-thousand thumbs up saying Borland did the right thing to support GPL blah blah blah). Then Borland ships add-ons and developers can buy the other non-free components when they need.
Had they done it this way, perhaps the thread today would have much higher SNR, IMVHO.
Slashdot Mirror
the ps version looks much better:
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/primality.ps
Am I running DOS so that I only have one task running at a certain moment, and now your app can simply suck up more CPU cycles than it really needs, and then claim it's waiting for me because I am a slow perk in typing? Well, that argument works in DOS age (or any non-multitasking environment).
The fact that the user will probably not notice the performance lost due to lazy code is true only when you are talking about one task. But when there are more than one task running, it really adds up, even when those are just "constant speed slow down" (i.e. asymptotically the same but differs in a "small" constant). Just look at, urr, whatever you want to name here.
I find it really annoying to hear programmers claiming their code only needs to be in "user speed" (being as fast as the user). That's not true at all these days. Any code, even the GUI code, should be _reasonably_ efficient or else I will only have to upgrade my CPU every year just because of lazy code.
Sad.
This makes me think about how development tool companies like Borland should package their product. In Borland's case, they have almost everything I want in the standard edition, just exclude the class browser. Wouldn't it be nice if Borland actually doesn't create any edition at all but put out a check-list of features for the developer to choose from, with a separate price tag for each feature? (So in my case I will check the stuff in the standard edition and the class broswer.)
Similar strategy has been used by Adobe in their font collection. But I have to admit it's a very different product so maybe it works there but not here.
The same could have been done to Kylix here. They could first release the Kylix in the GPL version (and on that release day we will see a thread with ten-thousand thumbs up saying Borland did the right thing to support GPL blah blah blah). Then Borland ships add-ons and developers can buy the other non-free components when they need.
Had they done it this way, perhaps the thread today would have much higher SNR, IMVHO.