Bloat in software is getting WAAAY out of hand
8 points
18 hours ago
| 5 comments
| HN
I saw a Sudoku game the other day-SUDOKU you know a few numbers-that took 40 seconds to load, and then caused the phone to overheat while in play, while splashing ads here and there. Its sad. That was the very definition to me of "giving into bloat". Nobody cares about efficiency anymore, and in fact are going in the opposite direction. Substituting bloat for actual programming knowledge, many of these game developers never touched a single ounce of code nor would know how to begin with. Just downloaded some bloaty API and pump out games on an engine that requires 4TB to run (so basically it means spoiled brats are using it) I have given up on computer science which I used to love so much. Anymore its just...disappointing how the world adapted to it. very...very disappointing. All that potential yet it is all wasted on bloat, redundant security and moneygrubbing before the first pixel is ever drawn.
IcePic
2 hours ago
[-]
And if you time travel to the 90s, this is what amiga owners with 1M ram said about PC/Win users needing 8,16,32M of ram to paint a few icons on the monitor. But noone listened then, because ram was cheap and you should not stand in the way of "progress".

So here we are, needing gigs to paint a single pixel. Congratulations everyone that chose bloat, you won.

reply
markus_zhang
3 hours ago
[-]
Mobile games nowadays need to use Ads for revenue, so yeah it probably uses one of those Ads SDKs. Technically it probably just needs to use Java and some libraries to blit images on screen but that’s not profitable anymore. I don’t touch mobile games TBH.
reply
throwaway5465
10 hours ago
[-]
You encountered an App Spam. They litter app stores. Like spam videos on YouTube.

It only makes an ever stronger case for good software.

reply
winstonwinston
17 hours ago
[-]
It is more scary that many (most) websites now use SPA frameworks that randomly crash itself, cannot even load on a iPad with 2GB of RAM or use 100% CPU constantly.
reply
skydhash
17 hours ago
[-]
I just visit an article on Microsoft's devblog and the page was blank with JS disabled. I can't think on how JS rendering is more performant than server rendering and caching. We view the article more times than it being edited.
reply
zzo38computer
18 hours ago
[-]
I thought so too, and I agree with you. Your explanation looks like OK, to me; it is wasted on bloat and other stuff like you mention.

> Nobody cares about efficiency anymore

Some people do care, but unfortunately it is not common enough now.

(I am one programmer who does not like this bloat.)

reply