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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 pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adage
A proverb (from ) or an adage is a simple, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and are an example of formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbial expression is a type of a conventional saying similar to proverbs and transmitted by oral tradition. The difference is that a proverb is a fixed expression, while a proverbial phrase permits alterations to fit the grammar of the context. Collectively, they form a folklore genre, genre of folklore. Some proverbs exist in more than one language because people borrow them from languages and cultures with which they are in contact. In the West, the Bible (including, but not limited to the Book of Proverbs) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of Erasmus) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs. Not all Biblical proverbs, however, were distributed to the same extent: one scholar has gathered evidence to show th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andy Grove
Andrew "Andy" Stephen Grove (born Gróf András István; 2 September 1936 – 21 March 2016) was a Hungarian-American businessman and engineer who served as the third CEO of Intel Corporation. He escaped from the Hungarian People's Republic during the 1956 revolution 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 alongsi ... [...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 that engineers create and can fix. For example, modern programming languages have abstracted away the details of writing and optimizing assembly language so ... [...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 capabili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jevons Paradox
In economics, the Jevons paradox (; sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological advancements make a resource more efficient to use (thereby reducing the amount needed for a single application); however, as the cost of using the resource drops, if the price is highly elastic, this results in overall demand increasing, causing total resource consumption to rise. Governments have typically expected efficiency gains to lower resource consumption, rather than anticipating possible increases due to the Jevons paradox. 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 from improved energy efficiency. In additi ... [...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 (where it should not be confused with power creep) 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" varies among end users, where what is perceived as such by some users may be considered practical functionality by others. Feature creep is one of the most common sources of cost and schedule overruns. It thus endangers and can even kill products and projects. Causes Feature creep may arise from the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product in order to increase sales or distribution. Once a product does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer may add functions some users might consider unneeded (sometimes at the cos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enshittification
Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a pattern in which two-sided online products and services decline in quality over time. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders. Writer Cory Doctorow coined the neologism ''enshittification'' in November 2022, though he was not the first to describe and label the concept. Doctorow's term has been widely adopted. The American Dialect Society selected it as its 2023 Word of the Year, with Australia's ''Macquarie Dictionary'' following suit for 2024. Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com also list ''enshittification'' as a word. Doctorow advocates for two ways to reduce enshittification: upholding the end-to-end principle, which asserts that platforms should transmit data in response to user requests rather than algo ... [...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 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 great that o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David May (computer Scientist)
Michael David May (born 24 February 1951) is a British computer scientist working primarily in the fields of computer architecture, parallel computing and robotics. 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 is one of the few individuals who have led the design of a CPU architecture, an interconnect and a modern era programming language. In addition to his work on parallel-computing microprocessors, he is particularly well known for his work on memory management and compiler development. He was lead architect for the pioneering parallel microprocessr, the transputer. As of 2024, he holds 56 patents in areas including microprocessors, multi-processing and communication protocols. Early life and education May was born in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, England and attended Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield. From 1969 to 1972, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operating System
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of Scheduling (computing), processor time, mass storage, peripherals, 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 computerfrom cellular phones and video game consoles to web servers and supercomputers. , Android (operating system), Android is the most popular operating system with a 46% market share, followed ... [...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 (where it should not be confused with power creep) 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" varies among end users, where what is perceived as such by some users may be considered practical functionality by others. Feature creep is one of the most common sources of cost and schedule overruns. It thus endangers and can even kill products and projects. Causes Feature creep may arise from the desire to provide the consumer with a more useful or desirable product in order to increase sales or distribution. Once a product does everything that it is designed to do, the manufacturer may add functions some users might consider unneeded (sometimes at the cos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
