Questions before moving on to FB

[caseih]

The cult's exact name is minimalism.

There's no way you could call programming in assembly minimalism. Minimalism is something different entirely. Minimalism is the removal of features and user interface elements all in the name of... well I'm not really sure, frankly, because I don't understand what UI minimalists are thinking. Minimalism may be a cult itself, and a blight on modern computer applications but it's not the same thing as what is being discussed here.

[caseih]

unfortunately the culture of "don't care about size" has taken over a long time ago. The evidence is called "Windows rot", and it means that your 5 year old machine should go to the waste bin because it can't cope any more with "modern" software.

Large, "bloated" executables has little to do with Windows slowing down over time. Windows' famous slow down have more to do with Windows internals (it's better than it used to be). Specifically the registry which was never cleaned up as programs were uninstalled. Also dlls and other components are registered in the registry and all of that seems to clutter startup times and so forth.

Further what you describe doesn't really happen on other operating systems. I have a 10 year old Mac that runs as fast today (with a recent version of macOS upgraded) as it did when it was new. Same with Linux. Most applications, even the latest versions, run just as well as they did 10 years ago. Obviously there are some exceptions for apps that make more demands of the hardware, such as 3D acceleration.

What I can't stand is the arrogance and insults that come, inevitably, from those who don't care about size. They are no poets or writers, they are just coders, but still, why all this hatred?

What hatred? What insults? Nothing you quoted are these. Marcov's comparison with a toothbrush is a fairly correct one. Different people care about different things. It's all about encouraging balance. In my experience writing in assembly is fun and will always have its place in some things like kernel development. But as a general programming tool it's a poor way to go. Compilers are not written in assembly for some very important reasons. As a classic example of why not to use assembly, consider PowerBASIC. In its day it was a marvel of engineering. Hand-coded assembly, blazingly fast compile times, tight executable output. However the fact that it was written in assembler ultimately doomed it. It was eventually brought to Windows where it remained written in assembly. However this was back in the 16-bit days. When win32 came out, the effort required to move it to 32-bits was too much for a one man band to keep up. Although PowerBASIC supported creating 32-bit applications, the IDE itself remained 16-bits. That was the end of the road for PowerBASIC. Each step along the required rewriting from scratch as the platform changed. Compare that to FreeBASIC which is written in FreeBASIC. New platforms are relatively easy to port to. Someone recently did a port to Solaris or BSD or something. There's an ARM port of FB for use on the Pi. Assembler allows none of that easily.

Your assembler text editor is I'm sure tiny and fast. But it won't run on any of the systems I use. I'm sure x86 will remain with us through our lifetimes, but other hardware platforms like ARM are growing in relevance and use, especially with Apple moving to ARM. Just something to keep in mind.

[deltarho[1859]]

Jochen

Comments like:

"Apparently you must demonstrate your professional superiority, and you must insult the rest of the World. Get a shrink, please."

are not particularly helpful though, are they?

No doubt there are others who have 'Questions before moving on to FB' and seeing how this thread has developed may now be thinking twice about moving. Jeff Marshall had to do a 'clean up job' in the WinFBE thread yesterday - Jeff has better things to do, and he is a lot more tolerant than I am. For me, I would have issued a few temporary suspension orders by now. Some of us seem to forget that this is supposed to be a peer support community, and we should engage a little more in 'live and let live'.

[jj2007]

Jochen

Comments like:

"Apparently you must demonstrate your professional superiority, and you must insult the rest of the World. Get a shrink, please."

are not particularly helpful though, are they?

I agree, David. I reacted to a long list of foul language by marcov, see below, in this thread only - the guy who has maliciously put me on his "ignore list", as he proudly announced. I avoid insulting fellow members, but sometimes it's simply too much, therefore the 'shrink'.

don't needlessly make size the centre of the universe
forums have their weird and aggressive posters
I really don't understand the small EXE cult
Impressive waste of time
like doing dishes with a tootbrush
this bright mentality
Who determines this nonsense?
script kiddies and lamers
repetitive reuse of minimal assembler templates
use FPC 16-bit and create 16-bit COM files
degrades to binary size mudslinging and whining about bloat
these discussions are so pointless
It is all baseless emotion
the whole lamer part of the discussion
whine about bloaty systems
that group has to evangelise their size-centric views

[jj2007]

Large, "bloated" executables has little to do with Windows slowing down over time. Windows' famous slow down have more to do with Windows internals (it's better than it used to be). Specifically the registry...

Lots of good points (but some would deserve a debate - Windows 10, for example, is unusable because of the huge, bloated upgrades). What distinguishes your post from marcov's is that you don't insult me in any way. You just argue without attempting to denigrate the other person. I appreciate that, and I find it normal.

[deltarho[1859]]

I reacted to a long list of foul language by marcov, see below

I am an advocate of Carl Jung's Typology. We judge by employing thinking or feelings. We are one or the other for the most part and, for me, that is the end of the matter. What has always fascinated me is perception. We perceive by employing sensation or intuition.

For the life of me I don't perceive any 'foul language' in your list of marcov's comments. Some comments are abrasive and not unlike some of my comments which are equally abrasive.

maliciously put me on his "ignore list"

I don't see that as a malicious act. I shouldn't be surprised to learn that I am on some people's ignore list but I would read that as being a preference to ignore me.

Getting a thinking type to consider feelings is not difficult because they can see the logic in that. Getting a feeling type to consider thinking is difficult because they lack the logic required. Getting people to consider differing forms of perception is not possible whatever perception is employed. If a conflict we simply have to agree to differ.

but sometimes it's simply too much, therefore the 'shrink'

You mean that it has got the better of you and taking a deep breath was required and not a suggestion to get a shrink.

[jj2007]

maliciously put me on his "ignore list"

I don't see that as a malicious act.

That was sarcastic, David. I found it amusing ;-)

[Cretin Ho]

This could be my last post on this thread since I can't keep track with the new posts.

There are many kind of minimalism, the small EXE cult maybe not considered as one of those but using the least tools available to done the job (an editor with assembly alone) is definitely falls into this category. IMHO, the small EXE cult is what on the surface, the real cult behind it is minimalism.

[deltarho[1859]]

That was sarcastic, David.

Well, that has shut me up - I am lost for words on that.

On the subject of keeping exes small gcc 8.3 keeps them well trimmed. Very much more often than not it also tends to produce the fastest binaries. It can be beaten on speed but not very often. For me, it is the best gcc for FB.

[jj2007]

IMHO, the small EXE cult

There is no small exe cult. Google finds "About 1,970,000 results" for the search string "windows 10" "unusable". Hit #2 says it all: Bloatware updates make system unusable - Windows 10

[Cretin Ho]

IMHO, the small EXE cult

There is no small exe cult. Google finds "About 1,970,000 results" for the search string "windows 10" "unusable". Hit #2 says it all: Bloatware updates make system unusable - Windows 10

Marcov was right. You have confused between bloated software and bloated binary size. The two are interconnected but not synonym. Bloated software of course will cause bloated binary size. But bloated software was caused by bloated code with many [maybe untested] features included. An executable that bigger in size doesn't caused a bloated software.

Windows 10 was bloated because tons of new [not thoroughly tested] features included by M$. An bigger in size executable has nothing to do with that.

[badidea]

IMHO, the small EXE cult

There is no small exe cult. Google finds "About 1,970,000 results" for the search string "windows 10" "unusable". Hit #2 says it all: Bloatware updates make system unusable - Windows 10

Google finds "520,000,000 results" for the search string "reasons to get a cat".
Just throwing in some other totally off-topic comment.

[jj2007]

Windows 10 was bloated because tons of new [not thoroughly tested] features included by M$. An bigger in size executable has nothing to do with that.

Check what you get with an update, it's full of bloated executables. Many, perhaps most, Microsoft customers are extremely pixxed off, because their Win 10 machines are most of the time at 100% cpu and disk use, and therefore unusable. This is the consequence of the size doesn't matter cult: Micros**t will lose the desktop market to Linux and Macs.

Code: Select all

Windows install Ghz/RAM/disk:
Atari ST	8/0.5/1
Win 3.1	25/2mb/6mb
95	?/4/50
98	66MHz/16mb/200mb
NT	33/16/110
ME	150/32/320
2000	133/64/0.65 of 2g
XP	300/128/1.5
Vista HP	1g/1g/15 of 40g
Win 7	1g/1g/16
Win 10	1g/2g/32

These are the official requirements. Note that an Atari ST ran just fine with half a megabyte, but running Win 10 with the official 2048 MB is a joke...

I checked my C:\Program Files stuff: 512 exe files (this is Win7-64). That folder is mostly empty because C:\Program Files (x86) is still much more popular: almost 20,000 exe or dll files, most of which I did not install myself. Sorting that list by size took 20 seconds, probably because the programmer of my file manager has not the faintest idea how a Windows listview works (in Assembly, I sort a million lines in about one second). I am regularly confronted with ridiculously slow, bloated and buggy software. WhatsApp for Windows, for example, starts sometimes writing to disk at a pace of 3MB per second, for no apparent reason other than a link in one post. Sometimes I open the task manager and discover that the bloody piece of bloat has written 30GB to disk in the last three hours. If you go on holidays for a week and leave your machine on, that's >1800 GB, and your SSD is probably ready for the waste bin. Lousy software everywhere, and I doubt that it's the fault of Micros**t. Programming for 300+ different Linux flavours can't be easier.

Google finds "520,000,000 results" for the search string "reasons to get a cat".
Just throwing in some other totally off-topic comment.

Your post is indeed off-topic. Btw, it's only "About 473,000 results" (there is a huge difference if you use brackets or not).

[badidea]

Your post is indeed off-topic

Yes, sorry I did not answer any of the original 3 questions. But hardly anyone does in this topic.

Continuing off-topic...

Micros**t will lose the desktop market to Linux and Macs.

Don't worry, bloat is coming to those platform as well. Maybe less to the Mac because Apple dictates everything there, but on Linux more and more software is shipped with statically linked libraries, not using the already installed libraries on the system. And compiling form source also happens less.

I have been trying the Rust language, started largely by Mozilla. With 7 example repositories downloaded, my 1 week Rust folder is larger than 30 years of code and executables in QBASIC, PowerBasic and Freebasic combined.

And yes, Microsoft seems to create bugs faster than that it can patch. Exchange server exploits are going up like the bitcoin value. Which a lot of software (bloat) there are also a lot of bugs to be used.

[caseih]

Maybe less to the Mac because Apple dictates everything there

This is the same operating system where self-contained app bundles are the norm. Although they do, like Linux, have an advanced system for shared frameworks. As always, trade-offs. While most Linux distros are getting quite complicated and the apps being used are very complicated these days, at least Linux can be stripped down and a very small distro made to run in just a few MB of space (which back in the MS-DOS days still would raise eyebrows).

There are other interesting ways of dealing with bloat and duplication these days. Advanced file systems like ZFS can not only compress blocks but also can do dedeuplication across the entire file system, at a block level. Neat stuff. ZFS is an amazing file system.

And yes, Microsoft seems to create bugs faster than that it can patch. Exchange server exploits are going up like the bitcoin value. Which a lot of software (bloat) there are also a lot of bugs to be used.

Ahh but rewriting it all in Rust will fix that. :)