Software has been becoming slower and more bloated for decades and it’s only going to accelerate with “ai”.
This is mostly true, but a little misleading. (although the AI part is absolutely correct)
This is mostly a result of having more powerful hardware. When you’re working with very limited hardware, you have to be clever about the code you write. You’re incentivized to find trade-offs and workarounds to get past physical limitations. Computer history is filled with stuff like this.
Starting around the mid 90s, computer hardware was advancing at such a rapid pace that the goalposts shifted. Developers had fewer limitations, software got more ambitious and teams got larger. This required a methodology change. Code suddenly needed to be easier to understand and modify by devs who might not have a full understanding of the entire codebase.
This also had a benefit to the execs, where entirely unoptimized, or even sometimes unfinished code could be brought to market and that meant a faster return on investment.
Today we are seeing the results of that shift. Massive amounts of RAM and powerful CPUs are commonplace in every modern device, and code is inefficient, but takes up basically the same percentage of resources that it always has.
This change to AI coding is unavoidable because the industry has decided that they want development to be fast and cheap at the cost of quality.
The goal here isnt to have personal devices run the shitty vibe-coded apps, it’s to lease time in datacenters to have them run it for you and stream it to your device for a monthly fee.
The goal here isnt to have personal devices run the shitty vibe-coded apps, it’s to lease time in datacenters to have them run it for you and stream it to your device for a monthly fee.
Sure but there are deep seated problems with this: (1) the shitty vibe coded apps are so bloated that they can’t run their client side code without thick clients, (2) optimizing code is something nobody wants – or in many cases knows how – to do, and (3) Internet access is still spotty in many parts of the US and will likely stay that way due to other digital landlords seeking rent for fallow fields.
This is mostly true, but a little misleading. (although the AI part is absolutely correct)
This is mostly a result of having more powerful hardware. When you’re working with very limited hardware, you have to be clever about the code you write. You’re incentivized to find trade-offs and workarounds to get past physical limitations. Computer history is filled with stuff like this.
Starting around the mid 90s, computer hardware was advancing at such a rapid pace that the goalposts shifted. Developers had fewer limitations, software got more ambitious and teams got larger. This required a methodology change. Code suddenly needed to be easier to understand and modify by devs who might not have a full understanding of the entire codebase.
This also had a benefit to the execs, where entirely unoptimized, or even sometimes unfinished code could be brought to market and that meant a faster return on investment.
Today we are seeing the results of that shift. Massive amounts of RAM and powerful CPUs are commonplace in every modern device, and code is inefficient, but takes up basically the same percentage of resources that it always has.
This change to AI coding is unavoidable because the industry has decided that they want development to be fast and cheap at the cost of quality.
The goal here isnt to have personal devices run the shitty vibe-coded apps, it’s to lease time in datacenters to have them run it for you and stream it to your device for a monthly fee.
Sure but there are deep seated problems with this: (1) the shitty vibe coded apps are so bloated that they can’t run their client side code without thick clients, (2) optimizing code is something nobody wants – or in many cases knows how – to do, and (3) Internet access is still spotty in many parts of the US and will likely stay that way due to other digital landlords seeking rent for fallow fields.