OT: Then vs Now Programming

[joe at actionline.com]

Obviously, today's computers and software have vastly improved
capabilities.  However, there is, no doubt, enormous amounts of needless
bloat.

It seems that the discipline of writing "tight" optimally efficient code
is too often utterly disregarded today, and that is regrettable.

While it surely is nice to have such a vast array of options, would it
not be of tremendous benefit to the world to have more and better options
for Linux systems that were truly optimized with "tight" and highly
efficient code to do 80-90% of what most people might need and want, and
have it all work faster and more efficiently like the Chromebook now
works but with all of the truly *essential* programs and files on the
local unit (not in the cloud).

Yes, I am aware of the ubuntu (and other) videos showing Linux
installations on the Chromebook and even smart phones, but there is
surely lots of room for improvement.

The ideal system should boot almost instantly with a full blown browser
and all the "normal" stuff that works instantly on a 4gb USB flash drive
with room on that same flash drive for both the OS and user files ... and
most of all, *no* tinkering or tweaking required.


Others recently wrote:
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> And the full source is under 70MB.
> Sure it's not a few floppies, but it doesn't require a DVD.

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>> I think some of it is bloat.

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>>> was programming back then more efficient and today's
>>> languages are seriously bloated and require more ram,
>>> or do programmers today not know how to program as efficiently?