Compiler: Size of generated executable file

[retard]

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:11:55 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:

> Justin Johansson wrote:
>> Generally speaking on the substance of the remarks on this thread (as
>> below; retard et. al) ...
>> 
>> especially ...
>>  > Unfortunately computer programs seem to inflate over time. A typical
>>  > program doubles its size in 2-3 years. I would understand this if a
>>  > tradeoff was made between size and performance but unfortunately
>>  > many programs also perform worse than before.
>> 
>> 
>> The blot is called marketing and is the hallmark of a capitalistic,
>> consumerist, non-green and resource-unsustainable society.
> 
> 
> It's generally a problem with the difference between what people say
> they want and what they'll spend money on. They say they want a stripper
> but over and over they buy the fully optioned version.
> 
> I few years ago, I was looking to buy a pickup truck but instead got a
> used commercial van. It's very interesting how different it is from a
> consumer van. The commercial one is a "stripper" - nothing but what it
> needs to get the job done. No radio, no stereo, no cupholder, no
> electric windows, no A/C, no heated seats, no glove box, no courtesy
> lights, no cruise control, no chrome, no badges, no trim, no nothing but
> what is needed to do its job. It's actually kind of neat-o. You can't
> buy anything like that in the consumer catalog.
> 
> (Back in the 80's, the Japanese car companies discovered that sales
> increased if all the "options" were rolled into the base configuration.)
> 
> The same goes for most consumer items. When was the last time you didn't
> prefer buying a phone with the longest feature list?

But in any case the car analogy fails here. There are no open source 
cars. You have lots of choice when choosing applications. I prefer 
lightweight applications even on this >3.5 Ghz Core i7. rxvt or xterm 
over gnome-terminal, pan over thunderbird, awesome over metacity etc. The 
system feels lightning fast. I have no DRMs to worry about. I can also 
easily get rid of all user friendly crapware that Windows users have to 
endure.

Unfortunately it seems I have hard time evading Wirth's law since most 
programs get larger and larger. If this trend continues, there is a 
physical limit on hardware capabilities, but applications will still 
continue on their road to doom.