Re: [Pgubook-readers] Counters and register size

[Roger]

> On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 10:34:14AM -0800, Herbert R Coburn wrote:
...snip...
>As you study, consider programming useful applications on an
>eight-bit CPU that could only address 64K of memory, of which
>16K was used by the operating system, running at 1MHz. I am
>absolutely amazed that today's applications on 64-bit quad-core
>CPU's running at 1.5 to 3GHZ (up to 3,000 times faster) with
>multi-GB memories crawl compared to some of the applications
>written in the 1970's. Programmers have grown so lazy.
>
>herbc

Ditto. I just noticed (Mozilla) Seamonkey slow remarkably over the past 6-12 
mos again.

I guess one cause of poor programming & debugging, can be attributed to writing 
and debugging on faster 64 bit 8x3.5 Ghz ~4-32GB RAM platforms.  Think of it 
this way, debugging an application on a faster platform will see zero speed 
difference compared to a slower 500Mhz-1Ghz CPU w/ <1GB RAM.

When platforms are no longer present and cease to exists after +5 years, it's 
likely even more difficult to deploy and debug on those platforms.  Hence, even 
though it's not good to become a lazy programmer, it is inevitable due to older 
hardware disappearing.

Of course, you are right programmers these days are lazy.  Most would tend to 
use a ready made function requiring many more CPU cycles then programming 
something correctly.  Two possible causes, 1) They're just lazy 2) They lack 
the insight and motivation to gain the required insight to streamline code.


-- 
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/