The case for small well written programs

[Manuel_Jordan]

Soon as I can I am going to reply your posts.

THanks!

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@xahodo

I think you’ll appreciate these people. Their software is right down your lane.

I do, but it is not about me.
This topic is about better ways to design and write software.
Especially about code bloat, excessive bug fixes and eternal updates.
I am still looking for something more radical. … I think we need a paradigm shift here.

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@xahodo

All that being said, I think there’s a lot of software which is simply too complex and too demanding to make a small binary of (browsers being such a case). Yes, you can take a lot out, but the core still remains big.

When it reaches the stage that it is not feasable to compile it , except on a supercomputer, then I think we have to look for another direction.

The compile time issue is part of the reason for snaps and flatpaks .

There is a limit … the binary, with all its dynamic libraries loaded has to fit into ram. That used to limit programs on old mainframes. We have pushed that limit back with modern cheap ram, but the way we are going software will catch up.

Even AI code will not solve that problem … it will make it worse. From what I have seen of vibe-coded projects, AI pays no attention to size of binaries or design of modular code.