Wirth's law is an

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 ...

computer performance In computing, computer performance is the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system. Outside of specific contexts, computer performance is estimated in terms of accuracy, efficiency and speed of executing computer program instruction ...

which states that

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. The adage is named after

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth ( IPA: ) (15 February 1934 – 1 January 2024) was a Swiss computer scientist. He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Tu ...

, 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 people are increasingly misinterpreting complexity as sophistication, that "these details are cute but not essential, and they have a hidden cost". As a result, he calls for the creation of "leaner" software and pioneered the development of

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairy, fairies in Middle Ages, medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania ...

, a software system developed between 1986 and 1989 based on nothing but hardware. Its primary goal was to show that software can be developed with a fraction of the memory capacity and processor power usually required, without sacrificing flexibility, functionality, or user convenience.

Other names

The law was restated in 2009 and attributed to

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

co-founder

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American businessman, computer engineer and computer scientist best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 when ...

. It has been referred to as ''Page's law''. The first use of that name is attributed to fellow Google co-founder

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (; born August 21, 1973) is an American computer scientist and businessman who co-founded Google with Larry Page. He was the president of Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., until stepping down from the role on D ...

at the 2009

Google I/O Google I/O, or simply I/O, is an annual developer conference held by Google in Mountain View, California. The name "I/O" is taken from the number googol, with the "I" representing the first digit "1" in a googol and the "O" representing the s ...

Conference. Other common forms use the names of the leading hardware and software companies of the 1990s,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, or their CEOs, Andy Grove and

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

, for example "What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away" and Andy and Bill's law: "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away". ''Gates's law'' ("The speed of software halves every 18 months"Gates' law
from the Jargon Lexicon, in the Jargon File (version 4.4.7).) is an anonymously coined variant on Wirth's law, its name referencing Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft. It is an observation that the speed of commercial software generally slows by 50% every 18 months, thereby negating all the benefits of

Moore's law Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of ...

. This could occur for a variety of reasons:

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 feature ...

, code cruft, developer laziness, lack of funding, forced updates, forced porting (to a newer OS or to support a new technology) or a management turnover whose design philosophy does not coincide with the previous manager. ''May's law'', named after David May, is a variant stating: "Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore's law".

History

Other names

See also

References

Further reading