"Bloat" includes the addition of intentional, but frivolous, features. An application can be well-optimized but still slow simply because it's doing too much.
But I think the reason that most modern software performs badly is because of optimization: we're optimizing to reduce production costs over increasing performance.
It's economic in nature. We minimize production costs by using frameworks and other labor-saving tools. The code produced using these tools tends to be poor, but hardware is cheap enough to make up for poorly performing software.
Some of that bloat is useful. Windows indexes files in the background, which would choke a single-core machine with HDD for sure. Thanks to that I can quickly access my files... well, so long as Windows is able to find the correct thing...
Expect that the search totally sucks. Have you tried Voidtools Everything? It finds files instantly, even on filesystems with millions of files. Yes, instantly, you type a word and it's just there, no matter SSD or HDD. Windows' built in search is a complete waste of time.
Well, all of that type of bloat is presumably useful to someone or it wouldn't have been written. That doesn't change the fact that there's a cost for including it.
> Windows indexes files in the background
But here's an example of the tradeoffs. I hate this behavior. It incurs an overhead that provides no benefit that matters to me. So, your useful feature is my useless bloat.
Windows has been indexing files for over 20 years.
Back then I would turn it off as I didn't find the search function that usable, and more than once I've had a "clean and build" process fail because some file was open and being indexed, and since Windows locks files on read, the build could not delete the file and just aborted. So, I turned it off.
And yet when I want to search in the files in a folder searching with windows search won't turn up anything, so I have to switch to the WSL and grep...
I feel like this is something where determinism would be a win. Maybe have indexing, but pre-prioritize certain common searches.
I notice that I get completely different results on my home and work machines doing the "start button, type" search. for "Downloads", expecting C:\Users\Username\Downloads, the home machine figures it out after three characters. The work machine seems to have decided that I clearly want "File Explorer, not any particular directory" and "Change how I download updates in spite of it being a corporate-managed box where I probably can't push that button without asking IT to remote in and do so" are what I want, even when I spot it the whole directory name.
On Linux machine I can access and find my files fast. And without any indexing running on the background.
Shit... even I could run the OS from a rust HDD and be usable without pain. Windows10/11 without an SSD it's painful slow.
The term bloat (as it applies to software) is rooted in gamer-think that has no basis in reality and sends a strong signal of lack of understanding. It's reminiscent of the days of 'BlackViper' and disabling Windows Services -- again, another gamer lack of knowledge issue.
Empty notepad, just started.
82,416K working set in main memory.
25.7MB in dedicated GPU memory.
59 threads.
2 billion cycles spent since launch.
Two threads in !OpenAdatper12 spending ~1.5M cycles per second.
Two threads in !recalloc spending ~256K cycles per second.
As shipped, this is no longer a single executable, it is a collection of 230 files, totaling 10.5MB, about half of which are bytewise duplicates, and another significant chunk have overlapping responsibilities, between the icon fonts and png icons.
"Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory, disk space or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version, while making only dubious user-perceptible improvements or suffering from feature creep." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bloat
I'm not aware of any substantial new features. It uses a new renderer, but this does not produce a significant observable difference from the previous one beyond using more memory.
It supports dark mode.
I'm no gamer, and "bloat" has been a term used in the industry from well before "gamers" (in the sense used today) existed. It's been a term of art for over 30 years.
It also describes a very real thing.
While there are a lot of things that everyone would agree counts as "bloat", there are also areas of disagreement in the form of "one person's bloat is another's essential feature".
I don't think it's unoptimized as much as it's extremely bloated.
What's the difference?
"Bloat" includes the addition of intentional, but frivolous, features. An application can be well-optimized but still slow simply because it's doing too much.
But I think the reason that most modern software performs badly is because of optimization: we're optimizing to reduce production costs over increasing performance.
It's economic in nature. We minimize production costs by using frameworks and other labor-saving tools. The code produced using these tools tends to be poor, but hardware is cheap enough to make up for poorly performing software.
It's an intentional decision.
/s
Bloat is intentional and fills Microsoft’s wallet.
Optimization drains Microsoft’s wallet.
A meaningless term to deride a feature or service you don't like or use.
Some of that bloat is useful. Windows indexes files in the background, which would choke a single-core machine with HDD for sure. Thanks to that I can quickly access my files... well, so long as Windows is able to find the correct thing...
Expect that the search totally sucks. Have you tried Voidtools Everything? It finds files instantly, even on filesystems with millions of files. Yes, instantly, you type a word and it's just there, no matter SSD or HDD. Windows' built in search is a complete waste of time.
2 replies →
> Some of that bloat is useful
Well, all of that type of bloat is presumably useful to someone or it wouldn't have been written. That doesn't change the fact that there's a cost for including it.
> Windows indexes files in the background
But here's an example of the tradeoffs. I hate this behavior. It incurs an overhead that provides no benefit that matters to me. So, your useful feature is my useless bloat.
Everything's a tradeoff.
4 replies →
Windows has been indexing files for over 20 years.
Back then I would turn it off as I didn't find the search function that usable, and more than once I've had a "clean and build" process fail because some file was open and being indexed, and since Windows locks files on read, the build could not delete the file and just aborted. So, I turned it off.
1 reply →
Indexing is a weird example to use considering how notoriously garbage Windows file search is.
For some reason even in fairly constrained subtrees it takes forever to find file names.
1 reply →
And yet when I want to search in the files in a folder searching with windows search won't turn up anything, so I have to switch to the WSL and grep...
I feel like this is something where determinism would be a win. Maybe have indexing, but pre-prioritize certain common searches.
I notice that I get completely different results on my home and work machines doing the "start button, type" search. for "Downloads", expecting C:\Users\Username\Downloads, the home machine figures it out after three characters. The work machine seems to have decided that I clearly want "File Explorer, not any particular directory" and "Change how I download updates in spite of it being a corporate-managed box where I probably can't push that button without asking IT to remote in and do so" are what I want, even when I spot it the whole directory name.
The new Windows Terminal is also extremely slow for some wild reason
1 reply →
> Some of that bloat is useful.
If bloat is useful, notepad in any form on any version of Windows is bloat by definition.
You've got CLI editors that are smaller.
3 replies →
On Linux machine I can access and find my files fast. And without any indexing running on the background. Shit... even I could run the OS from a rust HDD and be usable without pain. Windows10/11 without an SSD it's painful slow.
> Windows indexes files in the background, which would choke a single-core machine with HDD for sure.
This was done also in Win 7. It didn't have such a performance hit, but it was the first thing to be disabled after installing windows.
Index for what? The Windows search has always been unbelievably bad and it has only gotten worse since Windows 7.
The term bloat (as it applies to software) is rooted in gamer-think that has no basis in reality and sends a strong signal of lack of understanding. It's reminiscent of the days of 'BlackViper' and disabling Windows Services -- again, another gamer lack of knowledge issue.
Empty notepad, just started. 82,416K working set in main memory. 25.7MB in dedicated GPU memory. 59 threads. 2 billion cycles spent since launch.
Two threads in !OpenAdatper12 spending ~1.5M cycles per second. Two threads in !recalloc spending ~256K cycles per second.
As shipped, this is no longer a single executable, it is a collection of 230 files, totaling 10.5MB, about half of which are bytewise duplicates, and another significant chunk have overlapping responsibilities, between the icon fonts and png icons.
"Software bloat is a process whereby successive versions of a computer program become perceptibly slower, use more memory, disk space or processing power, or have higher hardware requirements than the previous version, while making only dubious user-perceptible improvements or suffering from feature creep." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bloat
I'm not aware of any substantial new features. It uses a new renderer, but this does not produce a significant observable difference from the previous one beyond using more memory. It supports dark mode.
2 replies →
I'm no gamer, and "bloat" has been a term used in the industry from well before "gamers" (in the sense used today) existed. It's been a term of art for over 30 years.
It also describes a very real thing.
While there are a lot of things that everyone would agree counts as "bloat", there are also areas of disagreement in the form of "one person's bloat is another's essential feature".