|
Wirth's Law
Wirth's law is an adage on computer performance which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. The adage is named after Niklaus Wirth, a computer scientist who discussed it in his 1995 article "A Plea for Lean Software". History Wirth attributed the saying to Martin Reiser, who in the preface to his book on the Oberon System wrote: "The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness." Other observers had noted this for some time before; indeed, the trend was becoming obvious as early as 1987. He states two contributing factors to the acceptance of ever-growing software as: "rapidly growing hardware performance" and "customers' ignorance of features that are essential versus nice-to-have". Enhanced user convenience and functionality supposedly justify the increased size of software, but Wirth argues that p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adage
An adage (; Latin: adagium) is a memorable and usually philosophical aphorism that communicates an important truth derived from experience, custom, or both, and that many people consider true and credible because of its longeval tradition, i.e. being handed down generation to generation, or memetic replication. Variations and nature An adage may warn against a failure to plan, be interesting observations, ethical rules, or skeptical comments on life in general, such as "do not count your chickens before they hatch", "do not burn your bridges", and . Some adages are products of folk wisdom that attempt to summarize a basic truth; these are generally known as "proverbs" or "bywords". An adage that describes a general moral rule is a "maxim". A pithy expression that has not necessarily gained credibility by tradition, but is distinguished by especial depth or excellent style is denominated an "aphorism", while one distinguished by wit or irony is often denominated an "epigra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andy Grove
Andrew Stephen Grove (born András István Gróf; 2 September 193621 March 2016) was a Hungarian-American businessman and engineer who served as the third CEO of Intel Corporation. He escaped from Communist-controlled Hungary at the age of 20 and moved to the United States, where he finished his education. He was the third employee and eventual third CEO of Intel, transforming the company into the world's largest semiconductor company. As a result of his work at Intel, along with his books and professional articles, Grove had a considerable influence on electronics manufacturing industries worldwide. He has been called the "guy who drove the growth phase" of Silicon Valley. In 1997, ''Time'' magazine chose him as "Man of the Year", for being "the person most responsible for the amazing growth in the power and the innovative potential of microchips." One source notes that by his accomplishments at Intel alone, he "merits a place alongside the great business leaders of the 20th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
No Silver Bullet
"No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering" is a widely discussed paper on software engineering written by Turing Award winner Fred Brooks in 1986. "No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering" Brooks argues that "there is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude enfoldimprovement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." He also states that "we cannot expect ever to see two-fold gains every two years" in software development, as there is in hardware development (Moore's law). Summary Brooks distinguishes between two different types of complexity: accidental complexity and essential complexity. This is related to Aristotle's classification. Accidental complexity relates to problems which engineers create and can fix; for example, the details of writing and optimizing assembly code or the delays caused by batch processing. Essential co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimalism (computing)
In computing, minimalism refers to the application of minimalist philosophies and principles in the design and use of hardware and software. Minimalism, in this sense, means designing systems that use the least hardware and software resources possible. History In the late 1970s and early 1980s, programmers worked within the confines of relatively expensive and limited resources of common platforms. Eight or sixteen kilobytes of RAM was common; 64 kilobytes was considered a vast amount and was the entire address space accessible to the 8-bit CPUs predominant during the earliest generations of personal computers. The most common storage medium was the 5.25 inch floppy disk holding from 88 to 170 kilobytes. Hard drives with capacities from five to ten megabytes cost thousands of dollars. Over time, personal-computer memory capacities expanded by orders of magnitude and mainstream programmers took advantage of the added storage to increase their software's capabilities an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jevons Paradox
In economics, the Jevons paradox (; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use increases its demand, increasing, rather than reducing, resource use. The Jevons' effect is perhaps the most widely known paradox in environmental economics. However, governments and environmentalists generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption, ignoring the possibility of the effect arising. In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological progress could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption. The issue has been re-examined by modern economists studying consumption rebound effects f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feature Creep
Feature creep is the excessive ongoing expansion or addition of new features in a product, especially in computer software, video games and consumer and business electronics. These extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and can result in software bloat and over-complication, rather than simple design. The definition of what qualifies as "feature creep" does vary among end users, where what is perceived as such by some users may be considered practical functionality by others. Causes The most common cause of feature creep is the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product, in order to increase sales or distribution. However, once the product reaches the point at which it does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer is left with the choice between adding functions some users might consider unneeded (sometimes at the cost of efficiency), and sticking with the old version (at the cost of a perceived lack of improvement) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Code Bloat
In computer programming, code bloat is the production of program code (source code or machine code) that is perceived as unnecessarily long, slow, or otherwise wasteful of resources. Code bloat can be caused by inadequacies in the programming language in which the code is written, the compiler used to compile it, or the programmer writing it. Thus, while code bloat generally refers to source code size (as produced by the programmer), it can be used to refer instead to the ''generated'' code size or even the binary file size. Examples The following JavaScript algorithm has a large number of redundant variables, unnecessary logic and inefficient string concatenation. // Complex function TK2getImageHTML(size, zoom, sensor, markers) ; The same logic can be stated more efficiently as follows: // Simplified const TK2getImageHTML = (size, zoom, sensor, markers) => ; Code density of different languages The difference in code density between various computer languages is so g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David May (computer Scientist)
Michael David May FRS FREng (born 24 February 1951) is a British computer scientist. He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bristol and founder of XMOS Semiconductor, serving until February 2014 as the chief technology officer. May was lead architect for the transputer. As of 2017, he holds 56 patents, all in microprocessors and multi-processing. Life and career May was born in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England and attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. From 1969 to 1972 he was a student at King's College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge, at first studying Mathematics and then Computer Science in the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, now the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. He moved to the University of Warwick and started research in robotics. The challenges of implementing sensing and control systems led him to design and implement an early concurrent programming language, EPL, which ran on a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating System
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources. For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between programs and the computer hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware and frequently makes system calls to an OS function or is interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer from cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. The dominant general-purpose personal computer operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 74.99%. macOS by Apple Inc. is in second place (14.84%), and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cruft
Cruft is a jargon word for anything that is left over, redundant and getting in the way. It is used particularly for defective, superseded, useless, superfluous, or dysfunctional elements in computer software. History Around 1958, the term was used in the sense of "garbage" by students frequenting the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the 1959 edition of the club's dictionary, it was defined as "that which magically amounds in the Clubroom just before you walk in to clean up. In other words, rubbage". Its author Peter Samson later explained that this was meant in the sense of "detritus, that which needs to be swept up and thrown out. The dictionary has no definition for 'crufty,' a word I didn't hear until some years later". Cruft can also refer to alumni who remain socially active at MIT. The origin of the term is uncertain, but it may be derived from Harvard University's Cruft Laboratory. Built in 1915 as a gift from a don ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feature Creep
Feature creep is the excessive ongoing expansion or addition of new features in a product, especially in computer software, video games and consumer and business electronics. These extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and can result in software bloat and over-complication, rather than simple design. The definition of what qualifies as "feature creep" does vary among end users, where what is perceived as such by some users may be considered practical functionality by others. Causes The most common cause of feature creep is the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product, in order to increase sales or distribution. However, once the product reaches the point at which it does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer is left with the choice between adding functions some users might consider unneeded (sometimes at the cost of efficiency), and sticking with the old version (at the cost of a perceived lack of improvement) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
