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> As someone who has been around since before the Web, While this is an impressive credential, it's one that I can also claim. > I can confirm that computers

> As someone who has been around since before the Web, While this is an impressive credential, it's one that I can also claim. > I can confirm that computers today do not feel any faster... despite the fact that your phone is faster than the fastest computer in the world from that time. I appreciate your confirming a subjective feeling based on anecdote, but as someone who was also around in 1995 and has continued to use computers daily since, I'll respectfully provide my own experiences as counter-anecdote to your own. I don't think there's any point in trying to debate our subjective opinions regarding how fast computers feel, but I'll assert that if you sat someone down with a 133mhz P1 desktop with 32MB of ram and a 2ghz i5 with 2GB of ram, 9/10 they'd agree that the 2ghz computer unequivocally feels faster than the 133mhz one.

jblow 11y ago
Dude my first professional programming experiences were on a 486/33. Compared to that a P1/133 is pretty darn fast! But as you say, there is not much point debating subjectivity here. It's not like I had the foresight to record benchmarks of how long it took web pages to appear, or to open a window, etc, back in the mid-90s. Edit: How about if I put it this way: If you go back in time to the 90s and tell everyone "20 years from now, we will have a much more advanced web where EVERYONE WILL HAVE A SUPERCOMPUTER IN THEIR POCKET", people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. In terms of potential unreached, the web is kind of a massive failure. (Yes, it is "successful" in the sense that we are able to do a lot with it that we could not 20 years ago, but the mediocre is the enemy of the good, and all that).
- vectorpush 11y ago
  > people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. I think this is what happened. Everyone can agree that there are many examples of extreme over-engineering on the modern web, but sites like gmail, facebook, youtube, twitch, google docs etc, by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful. Concerns about privacy and ads have made us wary of these trends on the web, but from a purely functional perspective, the modern web has achieved incredible technical feats compared to what was possible in 1995. > Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. Yes, there is a lot of junk on the web, and yes, it "kind of works", but this is true of all software on all systems. There are plenty of compatibility issues with native software across operating systems, there's also plenty of junk software on the desktop and in mobile app stores. All software is crap and the web is no different, but it isn't especially crappy, it's just that we see a lot more crap on the web because visiting a URL is a lot easier, safer, and more discoverable than executing arbitrary binaries.
  - jblow 11y ago
    > by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful Yeah no. If you had gone back to 1995 and told me that gmail was what you would get when I have a supercomputer in my pocket, a super-super computer on my desk, and all web pages are served by SUPER-super-super computers, I would have quit the industry out of depression. It is some horrible bullshit when you look at it in perspective. About the quality issue, no surprise that I also disagree there: the web is especially crappy. I do not consider any piece of software that I use to be performing acceptably (native or web), but there is a stark difference between the native apps and the web apps, in that the native ones are at least kind of close to performing acceptably, and also tend to be a lot more robust. Web apps not working is just the way of life for the web. Any time I fill out a new web form I expect to have to fill it out three times because of some random BS or another. Look at all the engineers employed by Facebook and especially Twitter. WHAT DO MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE EVEN DO? Obviously the average productivity, in terms of software functionality per employee per year, is historically low, devastatingly low. What is going on exactly??

jblow 11y ago

Dude my first professional programming experiences were on a 486/33. Compared to that a P1/133 is pretty darn fast! But as you say, there is not much point debating subjectivity here. It's not like I had the foresight to record benchmarks of how long it took web pages to appear, or to open a window, etc, back in the mid-90s. Edit: How about if I put it this way: If you go back in time to the 90s and tell everyone "20 years from now, we will have a much more advanced web where EVERYONE WILL HAVE A SUPERCOMPUTER IN THEIR POCKET", people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. In terms of potential unreached, the web is kind of a massive failure. (Yes, it is "successful" in the sense that we are able to do a lot with it that we could not 20 years ago, but the mediocre is the enemy of the good, and all that).

vectorpush 11y ago
> people would imagine the web would be amazing, and responsive and beautiful, and we would be doing some seriously intricate stuff. I think this is what happened. Everyone can agree that there are many examples of extreme over-engineering on the modern web, but sites like gmail, facebook, youtube, twitch, google docs etc, by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful. Concerns about privacy and ads have made us wary of these trends on the web, but from a purely functional perspective, the modern web has achieved incredible technical feats compared to what was possible in 1995. > Instead ... no, we have a pile of junk that only kind of works, and slowly at that. Yes, there is a lot of junk on the web, and yes, it "kind of works", but this is true of all software on all systems. There are plenty of compatibility issues with native software across operating systems, there's also plenty of junk software on the desktop and in mobile app stores. All software is crap and the web is no different, but it isn't especially crappy, it's just that we see a lot more crap on the web because visiting a URL is a lot easier, safer, and more discoverable than executing arbitrary binaries.
- jblow 11y ago
  > by the standards of 1995 are pretty damn amazing, responsive, and beautiful Yeah no. If you had gone back to 1995 and told me that gmail was what you would get when I have a supercomputer in my pocket, a super-super computer on my desk, and all web pages are served by SUPER-super-super computers, I would have quit the industry out of depression. It is some horrible bullshit when you look at it in perspective. About the quality issue, no surprise that I also disagree there: the web is especially crappy. I do not consider any piece of software that I use to be performing acceptably (native or web), but there is a stark difference between the native apps and the web apps, in that the native ones are at least kind of close to performing acceptably, and also tend to be a lot more robust. Web apps not working is just the way of life for the web. Any time I fill out a new web form I expect to have to fill it out three times because of some random BS or another. Look at all the engineers employed by Facebook and especially Twitter. WHAT DO MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE EVEN DO? Obviously the average productivity, in terms of software functionality per employee per year, is historically low, devastatingly low. What is going on exactly??