Old Software Was Fast Because It Had No Choice
8 hours ago
- #resource management
- #software bloat
- #technical debt
- Software often becomes bloated due to incremental increases in resource allocations (like CPU and memory) as temporary fixes that become permanent settings.
- Hardware advancements are consumed by larger runtimes, deeper dependencies, heavier containers, more telemetry, and wider safety margins, leading to inefficiency.
- Modern infrastructure's ease of scaling allows waste to persist, as constraints like manual hardware provisioning no longer force optimization considerations.
- Bloat survives because costs are shifted; decisions that increase resource use (e.g., adding dependencies) benefit one party while others bear long-term burdens.
- Implementing explicit resource budgets for components can foster intentional trade-offs, requiring justification for increases to combat unchecked waste.