What is Wirth’s Law and how does it affect the performance of my PC?
As hardware resources have become almost infinite, the need to write good code has been lost. The important thing is not that a program works, but rather that it does so using the least possible hardware resources. Either memory size or processor power. The problem comes from the fact that as hardware performance increases, problems that were previously solved with good programming discipline are increasingly being ignored and it is a problem that not only affects PCs or mobile phones.
Thus, we find ourselves with the problem that applications that should consume a portion of the resources they spend end up being like cookies for the famous blue monster from Sesame Street. Howeverthe name of the law we owe to Niklaus Wirthwho in February 1995 wrote an article entitled A Plea for Lean Software that could be translated as “a petition for cleaner software”.
Not really, you just need to run older versions of the programs to gain performance. As silly as it may seem, sometimes pulling old versions through Abandonware to perform certain tasks is much better than not using the newer versions. And Wirth’s Law is not only given in common applications. We’ve been able to see how certain re-releases of games that are remastered versions of games of yesteryear end up performing poorly for the new hardware.
So the fault that certain things do not seem to go faster is not the fact that PCs have not suddenly slowed down or are giving us a ride in performance. The fault lies with the software, which has stopped optimizing itself and with it has become less efficient. Many companies have stopped having quality departments, which are people who check that the code is well written and optimized. A good application not only works, but it does so using the fewest resources possible.
And why is this happening? Due to the fact that deadlines and releases are imposed that depend on the sales departments. After all, the software can be updated and patched. The problem is that many applications that we think work well are actually doing worse than they should.