On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 12:22 PM, Gilbert Sebenste
<sebenste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Jul 2014, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>
>> and did the conversion for display to save another byte. Efficiency?
>> We were desperate for every byte we could squeeze out. the US Post
>> Office created a standard so that all US cities (and supposedly streets)
>> could be entered in 14 characters or less. We changed the abbreviation
>> of Nebraska from NB to NE (I remember writing that conversion program)
>> so we could more easily mix US and Canada addresses (those they would
>> not change their 6 character code to our 5 digit one). We burned CPU to
>> save storage. then rewrote key routines in assembler and hacked the
>> COBOL calls to make it all work.
>>
>> Things change. Design goals change. Systems have to change.
>
> Of course they do. And those were changes in efficiency that were the
> result of needed productivity improvements. Change for the sake of
> major improvement(s). Wonderful, well-designed, efficient AND necessary.
> And it obviously made things more productive for everyone!
>
> I argue that systemd neither improves efficiency, productivity or
> satisfaction...nor is it necessary.
More to the point, those 'old' efficiency hacks were from a time when
programmer time was cheaper than the computer resources. Now, the
computers should be doing the work for us instead of the other way
around. Can anyone really make the argument that we can't afford the
computer resources for transparent backwards compatibility now?
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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