| Likewise, I've gotten by writing software with a pen and paper. There's an unfortunate consequence of the tendency for developers to have "Pro" hardware: their software often doesn't get tested on older hardware. Some examples: About 8 years ago, I tried to install a KDE-based Linux distribution on a PC that was then only 2 years old. The screen resolution defaulted to 800x600. I opened the settings panel to try and adjust it to 1280x1024 (the maximum for that monitor), but the settings window was larger than my screen, and the icon for screen resolution was off the bottom of my screen! I couldn't get to it. About 4 years ago, I was taking a Software Engineering course where our assignments were doled out with Eclipse project files. No problem, I installed Eclipse on my Macbook (which at the time was only one year old), and fired it up. It was using over a gig of RAM, and OS X using another half a gig. I couldn't open a web browser without swapping. Today the problem is even worse. Modern software gobbles so much memory -- it's ridiculous. Web browsers and desktop environments are especially bad, and systemd uses loads of RAM, too. I realize it's not all bloat, but this memory explosion is leaving users with older computers in the dust. Not everyone can afford to upgrade to the latest and greatest every year. I urge developers to keep their end users (even other developers) and their potentially meager hardware in mind. |
Most web browsers are actually pretty memory efficient these days. Unfortunately, the websites they're viewing aren't because they're designed and coded by people with "pro" hardware too.