Bloat costs

[Bob Pendleton]

>From article <2662D045.3F02 at tct.uucp>, by chip at tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg):

> Substitute "four megabytes of RAM" for "COBOL", however,
> and you get a depressingly accurate summary of the attitude
> of the day.  Am I implying that that 4M-or-die programmers
> are trogolodytes as well?  You bet your data space I am.
> -- 
> Chip Salzenberg at ComDev/TCT   <chip%tct at ateng.com>, <uunet!ateng!tct!chip>

A long time ago (about 10 years), at a company that has since changed
its name several times, I and 3 other damn good programmers spent a
year or so writing the runtime support libraries for a COBOL system
that generated code for an 8080 based "terminal" called the UTS400.
The compiler ran on a number of different machines and generated code
that ran on the '400. You linked the code with our runtime code and
you got an application you could down load to an eight inch floppy and
then boot on the '400. 

Our library did all the weird arithmetic and data formatting that
COBOL needs.  It also implemented a disk file system, host
communications, screen formatting, data entry validation,
multithreading (yes it was a multiuser system, up to 4 users if I
remember correctly), and segment swapping. It fit in 10K bytes. Normal
'400s had 24K, some had 32K. I know that at least one 20K lines COBOL
program ran on the machine all day, every day. 

Marketing decided we should also support indexed sequential files.
They "gave" us 1K to implement it. That is, the code for the indexed
sequential file system could not increase the size of the library by
more than 1K bytes.  We wrote the indexed sequential files module in
2K and rewrote the rest of the system to fit in 9K. 

So when people tell me they have done incredible things in tiny
memories on absurd machines I beleive them. I've even been know to buy
them a drink. 

Yes, it can be done. But for most things it is an absurd waste of
time. I can write code 5 to 10 times faster when I DON'T have to
worry about every byte I spend than when I'm memory tight. And I can
write code that RUNS several times faster when I'm free with memory
than when I have to count every byte. 

Some times you must run a ton of program on a pound of computer. Many,
if not most, commercial programs in the MS-DOS world fall into that
realm. But, most programming done in the name of "memory efficiency"
is just wasted time. You have to sell a lot of copies to make back the
cost of all that code tightening. Not to mention what it does to the
cost of further development. 

			Bob P.

P.S.

I also learned an important lesson on the power of structured design
and prototyping form this project. But, that's another story. 

-- 
              Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
UUCP Address:  decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet

                      X: Tools, not rules.