Pure dynamic casts?

[Jeremie Pelletier]

language_fan wrote:
> Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:58:51 -0600, Rainer Deyke thusly wrote:
> 
>> language_fan wrote:
>>> The cost of e.g. doubling computing power depends on the domain. If you
>>> are building desktop end user applications, they usually should scale
>>> from single core atoms to 8-core high-end enthusiastic game computers.
>>> So the cpu requirements shouldn't usually be too large. Usually even
>>> most of the 1-3 previous generations' hardware runs them just nicely.
>>>
>>> Now doubling the cpu power of a low-end current generation PC does not
>>> cost $1000, but maybe $20-50.
>> You also need to consider how widely distributed your application is. If
>> you force a million desktop PC users to upgrade their CPUs, you just
>> wasted twenty to fifty million dollars of your customers' money (or,
>> more likely, lost a million customers).
> 
> I do not believe the market works this way. According to that logic 
> popularity correlates with expenses. So if you have e.g. 1 billion users, 
> even $1 in per-user hardware costs causes a billion dollar losses to 
> customers. Is that unacceptable? On the other hand a program with a 
> userbase of 10 might require a $100 hw upgrade and it is still ok?
> 
> Usually it is the other way, more popular programs pretty much dictate 
> what hardware is useful today. E.g. consider a G4 Mac or PIII PC, it is 
> pretty much useless today since popular web applications like facebook, 
> myspace, youtube, and others are way too slow on it. (not to mention the 
> obligatory virus scanner updates which today require a 2 GHz PC). The HD 
> videos in youtube may require a 1.2+ GHz PC. If you buy an office suite, 
> the old Windows 98 will not even let you install it. Upgrading to Vista 
> is not possible since it will not fit to the 10 GB hard drive. The stores 
> will not sell PATA drives anymore so you either need to buy a PCI PATA 
> controller (not supported by the OS, of course) or upgrade the case, psu, 
> mobo, cpu, memory chips, graphics card, and the hard disk.
> 
> A used 2.5 GHz Athlon XP with 1GB of RAM and 100GB of disk costs about 
> $100. Anything below that is obsolete these days. Good luck selling 
> anything to people who use older computers, they are probably broke 
> anyways. Otherwise I just see it cheaper to build your apps slower and 
> require hardware updates. Just imagine - a highly optimized $400 program 
> is way too expensive for most users, a $50 program + $200 hw upgrade 
> sounds just fine.

But a $40 optimized program will flush the competition of either $400 
optimized equivalents or $40 slow equivalents, making you the winner in 
the end. People are so crazy about money they care more about their 
profits than the satisfaction of their customers.