[Techtalk] Philosophical question: CPU/memory/disk cheaper than efficiency?

[Carla Schroder]

On Monday 09 April 2007 19:51, Kelly Jones wrote:
> And now, a philosophical question:
>
> If I have a program that runs slowly (or hogs so much CPU/memory/disk
> that it slows other processes to a crawl), is it cheaper to:
>
>  % Work to re-code the program to be more efficient and use less resources?
>
>  % Increase the amount of CPU/memory/disk I have, or buy another
>  machine just to run this program?
>
> Someone told me this was a no-brainer, and that it was a generally
> accepted fact that computer CPU/memory/disk was much cheaper than
> programmer time. True?
>
> Have there been studies done on this? Articles written?

Does this affect only Elite Sacred Developers, or is this something that will 
be released for general use? I think expecting users to run out and purchase 
new hardware just to run a flawed program is a bit unrealistic *koff Vista 
hack koff*. Especially when you consider the impact of many such programs on 
a user's computer.

If it's something you're hacking for yourself, then that's a different matter. 
Then you're looking at how old is your current setup, what will it cost you 
in time and money and hassles to upgrade, and what if the boggy program has a 
memory leak or other flaw that isn't helped with a hardware upgrade?

-- 
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Carla Schroder
Linux geek and random computer tamer
check out my Linux Cookbook! 
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxckbk/
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