Original Kubuntu fan

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Now, it's no big deal to have an application executable larger than 5 MB.

Back during the 'dawn of PCs' when memory was incredibly expensive, small RAM and memory storage is what you got. Back then, programming was a real art, requiring true understanding and creative use of code to get the maximum bang into the smallest footprint you could. Code back then was elegant. It had real class.

Now, with RAM being cheap, programmers don't have to be creative, let alone really very good. Most code today, especially commercial code, is bloated and sloppily written.

+1 to that SnowHog!

[verndog]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Now, it's no big deal to have an application executable larger than 5 MB.

Back during the 'dawn of PCs' when memory was incredibly expensive, small RAM and memory storage is what you got. Back then, programming was a real art, requiring true understanding and creative use of code to get the maximum bang into the smallest footprint you could. Code back then was elegant. It had real class.

Now, with RAM being cheap, programmers don't have to be creative, let alone really very good. Most code today, especially commercial code, is bloated and sloppily written.

How very true. It was called tight programming. It was almost a test to see who could develop the same code in less space.

Also right on the availability of ram. Sloppy coding appears the norm. Time constraints I suppose.

[Snowhog]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Sloppy coding appears the norm. Time constraints I suppose.

Now, time is more expensive than memory, so 'quick and dirty' programming seems more the norm. "Why do in ten lines of code, what you can do in 1,000?" :P

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

True and how sad. 1000 lines to add 1 + 1 to get the error that it is 3.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

I guess I'll have to add an opposite view to this bloat party...

Unless you are, or want to be, a command line guru, and an console based EMACS master, larger programs that supply a GUI interface to service your needs is where you are or will live.

Bugs? Even CLI tools have bugs. I haven't met the perfect human yet, so I expect that anything made by man will have bugs. Somethings more, somethings less, but all will. Consider yourself lucky if the bugs in the tools you use don't arise. But, use that "one" feature you've never used before and you may hit a bug!

Bloat? It is code in an OS or application (sufficiently large) which no one can explain but cannot be removed without catastrophic effects. The Linux kernel is not yet in that position, but according to Linus it, too, is is bloated:

Among techies, Windows usually gets the bad wrap for bloat, but as Linux expands it reach, roping in so many additional features and devices, it can't help but suffer the same fate. What's different is how such problems are tackled.

It used to be that IF I wanted an internet connection for my 3Com 3c905 NIC I had to compile the Tulip driver to get it. The Linux kernel was slim, trim and fast, but many of the drivers for video, printer, sound, and other peripherals had to be compiled separately. Back then Linux was FREE, FAST, STABLE and (after I got my devices working properly) FUNCTIONAL. Today, I find the same situation exists, except that I rarely have to compile drivers for my peripherals, and I have not compiled a kernel since before 2002. Today, kernel modules are often compiled automatically during their install. VirtualBox and VMWare does this, and when you have a kernel change the next time you run them they'll recompile their kernel links using kernel headers.

KDE 4.5.1 is MUCH larger than KDE 1.0, but it does a WHOLE LOT MORE, and does it faster and with fewer problems. I stand by that last statement. I used KDE from 1.0 beta (1998) and on. While KDE 1.0 was, on my hardware, faster and more stable than Win95, it did have its faults. Push it on its edges and it was liable to crash. Win95 crashed just setting on an idle screen.

Today, using Qt4 for example, I can write a GUI "Hello World" program with less than a dozen lines of C++ code. It may compile to 10Kb because of the necessary libraries needed to talk to the SVG screen, but there is no bloat in it, and it works very reliably.
Main.cpp:

#include <qapplication.h>
#include <qpushbutton.h>
int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
QApplication a( argc, argv );
QPushButton hello( "Hello world!", 0 );
hello.resize( 100, 30 );
hello.show();
return a.exec();
}

It requires a project file:

################################################## #########
# Automatically generated by qmake (2.01a) Wed Sep 23 12:18:16 2009
################################################## #########
TEMPLATE = app
TARGET =
DEPENDPATH += .
INCLUDEPATH += .
# Input
SOURCES += main.cpp

but that is not part of the code, it is needed by the tool.

A larger application that I wrote has 23 files (*.h, *.cpp, *.ui) and compiles to 2.1 Mb of executable.

What you have in the KDE4 desktop is an environment in which the dekstop (KDE 4.5.1) plays host to a WIDE RANGE of INDEPENDENTLY compiled applications which are not part of KDE 4.5.1 but may be supplied with it, just like the GNU Utilities are NOT part of the Linux kernel but you never see the one without the other. That Amorok does not run properly does NOT mean that KDE 4.5.1 is bloated and broken. That Dolphin doesn't look and work like Konqueror does NOT mean that Dolphin (or KDE 4.5.1) is bloated or broken.

To me, an application is bloated if there are sections of code which cannot be removed but which no one can explain what they do or knows how to change them. Is broken if it cannot reliably do what it was basically designed to do. That it has trouble on YOUR hardware, or because of the way you configured it, doesn't mean it is bloated or broken. IOW, YMMV.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

I haven't met the perfect human yet,

Hi, I'm oshunluvr! Sorry - couldn't resist!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Sorry, but your wife looks more perfect!

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

@GG - yes you are right about no perfect code because of the Human Factor but I do believe it is made worse by the "rush" that is generally placed on coders to get the latest out there. A market/profit factor? Yes. Any way around that? None to my knowledge, so it will always be there.

@oshunluvr

[oshunluvr]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Can't argue with you there, GG!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

..../profit factor?...

Profit? In FOSS? Surely you jest!

"Everyone" knows that one cannot make money with FOSS... (Except IBM, RH, MS, ....) (How MS? By suing small FOSS users for using "their" IP -- a bully taking lunch money from the helpless...)

Rush? Well, one cannot write software with an open ended completion date, or without regular milestones. One has to set dates for code freezes or "wait, I just want to include one more thing ..." from a dozen different developers will bog everyone down. So, application developers work to include as much as possible before the code freeze. This despite the fact that most of them have regular jobs, a family or other responsibilities that pull on their time. They, too, are entitled to have a life.

Following the code freeze work is done on bug fixes and packaging. Which bugs get fixed? The ones that the most folks file bug reports on. It's as simple as that. Have an annoying bug that doesn't seem to get fixed, but you've never filed a bug report on it? Blame yourself. A developer has only so much time. She can't fix every bug reported. In fact, not every bug reported IS A BUG. So, he works down from the top of the list. If She can't reproduce the bug there is nothing she can fix. Some "bugs" occur above the keyboard. A program doesn't have a bug because it doesn't work the way one wants it to, or because one has never learned how to use it properly.

And, this msg doesn't address the malicious (so called "poisonous") user. An MS TE or other kind of troll whose only purpose is to malign what they are paid or feel is a reason why their pet company, OS or DE or application isn't doing well.

[kyonides]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

I still remember when I got BSOD every time I clicked on an empty CDROM drive on Windows Explorer in LostME WinME.

[Freshmeadow]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

What great memories this thread has awoken in this soon to be 59 year old. I remember typing punch cards for Fortran and Cobol in 1980 and struggling through Assembler at night school! Then, we bought a Commodore VIC 20 to help the kids learn about computers and played Garden Wars and Cosmic Cruncher with them. I even wrote a spaceship game in Basic! Ah, the good old days! The VIC 20 used a tape drive to store programs and data. Wow.

[Snowhog]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

My first 'use' of a computer, was my mothers Apple IIe, on which I 'taught myself' to write a character generator in Basic. 'Character generator' means, roll-playing characters for Dungeons & Dragons, which I was into back them. It worked slick, identifying the various characters you could choose from based on generated rolls of dice, incorporating a random number generator to ensure that the result was in fact, the result of the 'roll of the dice.'

[MoonRise]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

My first 'use' of a computer, was my mothers Apple IIe, on which I 'taught myself' to write a character generator in Basic. 'Character generator' means, roll-playing characters for Dungeons & Dragons, which I was into back them. It worked slick, identifying the various characters you could choose from based on generated rolls of dice, incorporating a random number generator to ensure that the result was in fact, the result of the 'roll of the dice.'

Cool! Loved D&D!

[ScottyK]

Re: Original Kubuntu fan

Cool! Loved D&D!

I had a Heathkit H89 back in 1979 that played a version of D&D. Green screen terminal with very primitive graphics, but I loved it. Then the whole "D&D is evil!" craze of the early 80's got me even MORE into the game.