[Izkata]

You're missing a step in the middle: It's not resource optimization itself, it's working under the constraint that forces you to learn, get creative, and figure things out. The investigation, attempts, failures, detours - all of it teaches you more about the language and system you're working on. That's where the experience and improved skills comes from.

Referring to it just by the end result of "resource optimization" is overly simplistic, along the lines of "painting is no big deal, it's just a bunch of colors".

[infecto]

Why do folks like yourself jump to such dull and cheap comments.

> “Painting is no big deal, it’s just a bunch of colors”

I don’t think anyone was saying such a thing. The original post stated that engineers of yesterday were so much better because of resource use, nobody would install a large JavaScript library.

My counter is that I don’t believe these arguments ever truly hold up. The times change and engineers are just as good as they once were but in other attributes. Sure constraints are great in work and in the market but that was not the original thesis.