Julio Merino (@jmmv)
nitter.netNitter thread from Julio Merino on application responsiveness in early 2000’s Windows computers versus modern Windows computers. Videos available in linked thread.
Please remind me how we are moving forward. In this video, a machine from the year ~2000 (600MHz, 128MB RAM, spinning-rust hard disk) running Windows NT 3.51. Note how incredibly snappy opening apps is.
Now look at opening the same apps on Windows 11 on a Surface Go 2 (quad-core i5 processor at 2.4GHz, 8GB RAM, SSD). Everything is super sluggish.
For those thinking that the comparison was unfair, here is Windows 2000 on the same 600MHz machine. Both are from the same year, 1999. Note how the immediacy is still exactly the same and hadn’t been ruined yet.
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Maybe the difference in security is the culprit, my home PC is snappy, my work PC not at all (and is better).
That’s maybe why my old Linux box running an old 4gen intel is insta-quick, no slow heuristic “AI” scanning-uploading-waiting for an answer every time I do the smallest thing…
I don’t know how some developers manage it. I’ve written web apps in React and, without even using available optimisations, the UI is acceptably snappy on any modern desktop.
We inherited an application from another vendor (because of general issues with the project) and it’s just S L O W. The build is slow and takes several minutes, the animations are painful and even the translations are clearly not available for the first 5 seconds.
My question is, how? I’m not an expert, I generally suck at frontend and I just had to fill in for it. I didn’t purposely write optimised code, the applications are similar in the amount of functionality they provide and they both heavily use JavaScript. How do you make it that slow?
Those aren’t really the same apps between the two systems, even if most of them still have the same names. Not only do the modem versions have more features, but they also have updated designs, window chrome, and use more secure underpinnings.
Compare the boot times, network speeds, ease and speed of installing new software, and security of the same old vs. new systems, and the new stuff will come out on top every time.
When feature development and short term gains are your only goals, this is what you get. Developers produce what they are incentivized to produce and “snappy” isnt as high on the list sadly.
I remember a Mastodon thread where this same issue was brought to the table. The thread talked about how before there were classes of bugs that would mess up RAM. Today, we eliminated a whole class of bugs by checking RAM. That is why our software is less snappy.
I wonder to what extent zero abstraction languages like Rust could make software much snappier by minimizing memory-related problems at compilation time rather than run time.