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Hardware capability increases exponentially, but software somehow just bloats up, using the power and space, without providing much more functionality or value. "Data expands to fill the space available for storage"
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One person's bloat is another person's feature.
(So it's lacking intellisense, tabs and colors, but damn, Visual C++ 6.0 used to load fast! Add Visual Assist and it still loaded fast.)
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One of the sources of the bloats in software are the layers of general purpose libraries that a specific software depends upon. Maybe only 1% or less of the said libraries are actually used for the specific tasks of the software, but they (the libs) all consumes resources according to their general settings nevertheless. As the number of the layers grow, the resource wasted also grow exponentially.
It would be better if the next generation of language, compilers and/or linkers could be such that it's possible to enable the software production process to be smart enough to extract only the needed bits of the generic parts (of the software) to produce the final result, like what is done in the early days in which things are simple enough that everything can be build up from ground just for the specific tasks of a software ...
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Shuqian Ying wrote: to be smart enough to extract only the needed bits of the generic parts (of the software) to produce the final result
There used to be a tool, ages ago, for C/C++ that did that, and I thought there was once such a thing for C#/.NET as well. But it's all "gotten" so entangled. 
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: There used to be a tool, ages ago, for C/C++ that did that
The linker and static libraries, perhaps?
The user can't update the up: we update it for them (Choice in the CP poll)
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"There used to be a tool, ages ago, for C/C++"
There still is - its called the linker. Link to static libraries and only the parts used (directly or indirectly) are pulled into your program (especially with Whole Program Optimisation).
Even better, using Modern C++ many libraries are "header only", in these cases the optimiser can sometimes work wonders - eliminating entire sequences of function calls and replacing it with the value where that can be determined statically.
(Nix'd by Code Wraith)
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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I won't even bother to answer that with the obvious pun on "rails". 
Haven't read the article yet, there might be more, haha!
Marc
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And here it is:
So what are the underlying problems?
Well, the OS. And the fact that everything has to be connected now, using various data stores (local, cloud, SQL, NoSQL, key-value, etc), and we have to deal with internationalization, translation, multiple devices, complex UI's (come now, how complicated was it when you had an 80x25 character display, if you were lucky), and everything has gotten faster -- from data feeds to demand for data (we're no longer putting you on hold on your analog phone line while we get your insurance folder from the file cabinet, you know).
So these aren't problems, they are solutions to problems that create their own problems. Um, ok, they are problems.
What are some potential solutions?
Solar flare? Nuclear war? Military state? The real problem is that people want more, and want it faster. Oh, and everything is entertainment nowadays.
I know. Less government regulation! Less government! I mean, geez, you should see the hoops we have to go through in the insurance industry!
Or is is just inevitable that we'll keep writing software to fill up the ever-expanding space those amazing hardware engineers keep coming up with?
Yes. To deal with it, invent new technology that sucks up more processing power, memory, and data storage, but makes it simpler to program and use.
Basically, the processing power, RAM, and storage requirements are where we shove the problem of "how much and how fast" so we can do cool things like land the first stage of a rocket back on earth and re-use it.
Marc
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[tldr]
Computers are great things that solve so many problems so quickly that wouldn't exist if there weren't any computers.
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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H.Brydon wrote: Computers are great things that solve so many problems so quickly that wouldn't exist if there weren't any computers.
What impresses me the most, when watching something like The Extraordinary Genius of Albert Einstein - Full Documentary HD - YouTube is how people used to solve problems 1) without computers and 2) by thinking.
Nowadays, it seems like, instead of thinking deeper about the problem that needs to be solved, we reach for Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc., and hack together a bandaid solution.
Marc
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When was software ever "on the rails" ?
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it. A few hundred years later another traveler despairing as myself, may mourn the disappearance of what I may have seen, but failed to see.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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A new study suggests that including emoji in your work emails may be making you look incompetent. 
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even more?   
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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CrowdStrike, Cylance, Endgame and others flagged Hello World as unsafe or malicious Hello World deemed unsafe (just walk on by instead)
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The article should be retitled "Let's listen to anti-malware companies blow smoke up our asses."
Makes you almost wonder if they're just snake oil salesmen.
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“There used to be an immediacy to the web,” says Anil Dash. “It was something you made.” New programming language (coming soon): bug
Really. Glitch?
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Kent Sharkey wrote: “It was something you made.”
I always think of it as a very stubborn donkey that seldom does what I want it to do, and often kicks and bites.
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it. A few hundred years later another traveler despairing as myself, may mourn the disappearance of what I may have seen, but failed to see.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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After programmers build an AI algorithm, they need to help it learn from data. If it added raisins, we know we're doomed
Apologies if anyone actually likes raisins in cookies, but they do not belong in chocolate chip cookies.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Apologies if anyone actually likes raisins in cookies, but they do not belong in chocolate chip cookies.
No apologies necessary, just as chocolate chips do not belong in raisin cookies.
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Proofs that P=NP, and even for the less exciting and more likely P≠NP, abound. Most of them by enthusiasts who, usually, can be commended for their enthusiasm, but not so much for their proofs. Npossible nprofound nproblem nproof nproduced
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