Software bloat

[altivo]

Gary asked me for the new version of Openoffice.org software. He always wants the newest release of things as soon as they come out. No way are we going to download that thing over dialup, so I figured I'd download to a USB flash drive at work and bring it home for him.

Well, the flash drive I carry around is only 128 MB. The Windows version of OpenOffice is now up to 127 MB. You can guess what happened. It didn't fit.

So today I brought my Zen Nano (MP3 player, 512 MB) and stuffed the stupid thing in there. Is there no end to software bloat? What could a word processor possibly need to excuse making it so huge? I think I won't be bothering to upgrade my Linux copy of the software. If necessary I'll switch to ABIWord, or just go back to using old reliable vi. A thousand fonts and clip art and bizarre graphic abilities do absolutely nothing for one's writing ability. They just waste time and processor cycles.

Comments

[soanos.livejournal.com]

I can feel your pain. I miss the days when an operating system fit on a floppy or two.
And there were abundance of useful features like bold, italic, underline, striketrough, centering etc.
None of this crud like wrapping text to follow a freehand squiggle and so on and so forth,
bundled with 847987 different fonts and clip art images, shapes etc...

Things have gone from functionality and ease of use to looks and shiny buttons, which I feel is the wrong way.

I personally blame the fast growth of available memory space, storage capacity and increased clock cycles per second.
There is no need to optimise anymore, as it will run passably on the new megazuperduperhyperfast desktop computers.

I remember times of Commodore 64, and Amiga. When the memory was strictly limited,
and there were no exceptions to the memory limit. The coders had to work hard to squeeze the code in a small space.
No memory leaks allowed. It had to work perfectly.

I miss those times.

The coders may disagree, as this would actually require them to work :P

C=64 never sleeps.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Re: C=64 never sleeps.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I like this one better. After all, who needs color for text editing?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I've been slowly returning to those times. A few months ago I bought a TRS-80 Model 100 from a friend for a very cheap price. I love it. Sure, it's a bit heavier than today's notebook computers. But it runs for 20 hours continuous on four AA batteries. It processes words, which is the big thing I want in a computer, and it has a real keyboard instead of one of those fake compressed ones.

I still have two Amigas and two TRS-80 Model 4 machines. They work just fine for everything except the internet, which has grown too bloated and difficult to manage with small machines and software.

Yes, you're right. Today's coders and even designers of software have no idea how to be efficient, because they've never had to do it. WordStar did all the word processing I needed or need today, and it ran in 64K of memory under CP/M. Back then, you had to pay more for the printer, though, if you wanted good quality output. Now the printer costs $50 but you need a thousand dollar computer and a 500 dollar word processor to use it.

[corelog.livejournal.com]

To be fair, dear, OpenOffice as a package includes word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, database, and graphics creation programs. It's not quite accurate to call it just a word processor.

No doubt the word processor alone, divorced from all the other "office suite" stuff, would be smaller in size. I use AbiWord myself, on my Xubuntu laptop. I don't have the resources to waste on the entire OpenOffice package, or even on GNOME or KDE. Xfce and AbiWord work just fine.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

And he only uses the word processor. But they don't offer that by itself, as far as I'm aware. When OpenOffice first began, one of the reasons it was created was to "fight the bloatware" of MSOffice. Well, I guess they lost that fight pretty badly.

AbiWord is decent, except that it really messes up on RTF files for some reason, both in and out.

[doco.livejournal.com]

What worries me more is, you still seriously use a 128 megabyte flash drive? :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's minimalism.

I don't download video or music crap. I prefer not to use bloated software. And I have no need to buy another flash drive. I can carry the manuscript for an entire novel on this one.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

You should see the size of the RunTime my DE requires. Got a spare 80M?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm still running AmigaOS off a 40 MB. No 80s here. ;p

[saythename.livejournal.com]

I haven't updated Openoffice in awhile. Maybe I should.

I just want stuff that works, so far I've not had a problem with
the Openoffice I've got.

*shrugs*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If you're on version 1.x then it's worth going to 2.x because of the large number of bug fixes. But since 2.0.x it's just been getting fatter and fatter with "features" that no one needs or wants.

If you only use the word processing and not all the other stuff, then it's well worth shopping around for "just a word processor". I think Wordpad is still pretty decent, actually, if you're on Windows. AbiWord is good on Linux.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I once had a bit of an excited conversation, I suppose, with a fellow who didn't understand why I spent an afternoon trying to free up one byte for something. He simply couldn't grasp that I was using an embedded system where I had precious little RAM and "just allocate another meg" was not an option - and that adding more RAM was not a matter of changing a strip or chip, but would have required changing circuit board design.

I do like AbiWord. I doubt it still "fits on a floppy" as it did when I first encountered it. I did not need it to fit on a floppy, but I appreciated that it was small enough to do so.

When I was using Windows, the first place I looked for tools was TinyApps where a program is only listed if it can fit on a floppy. It's a simple measure, allows transfer to older systems easily, and simply means things are not too apt to be bloated. Ah, and I see there is now a small section for OS X so I'll have to keep an eye on it again.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

This is an argument we can't win. They just don't get it. Like the woman next door to us who fills seven garbage cans every week (I kid you not, I don't know what's in them) the prevailing attitude is "Memory is cheap, processor cycles are cheap, why optimize?) It's the same attitude that has so much damaged the auto industry in this country.

Memory and processor cycles do have limitations, and the fact that we haven't run up against them yet doesn't mean that we won't. Even if quantum computing becomes a reality, it still has finite limitations.

My answer to this, which still tends to fall on deaf ears, is "Why use an atom bomb to kill a mosquito?" But, if you watch, especially younger folks, you will see them load a monster like OpenOffice just to edit a 20 line configuration file that could have been done with vi in a tenth of the time it takes OpenOffice just to load.

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

You could've squeezed it into the 128MB flash drive by downloading the OpenOffice.org distribution without JRE. The JRE is really only needed for certain special features and the database component, so if you're just using Writer, you probably don't need that. That will cut the download size by around 14MB.

Problem is OpenOffice.org doesn't make it easy to find the non-JRE download. It can be found on one of the mirror sites, like here.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't know you could still download it without JRE. And that's dumb, because nearly everyone has JRE already on their machine. I'm afraid OpenOffice has wandered off the track of sensibility, almost as if they were a commercial product.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

Heh. I use notepad for almost all of my writing.

Was thinking about software bloat earlier yesterday. That, as storage increases, developers feel the need to fill it up. Constant updates, etc. are making my computer slower and slower as the drives fill up and yet nothing other than being slower seems to result.

I do miss my C64 but not my TI99. So I fit somewhere in the middle in liking a few niceties.

Impers

[soanos.livejournal.com]

We all miss C64.
Maybe this will cheer us all up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaXVdwWuU-A
It is a song by Press Play on Tape, a C64 revival band.
Their website is at http://www.pressplayontape.com/

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The trouble with Notepad is it has a limitation on file size. I gave up on it back in Win98 when it used to have a bug that kept it from printing properly too. Wordpad wasn't too bad though. It's just an old version of Microsoft Word from before the bloat attacks began.

Yes, I can see why you wouldn't miss a TI99 or a Sinclair. I never used a C64 or Apple II myself, either. TRS-80 model I was just too flaky to miss, and the model III (I had two of those) was also a poor design. But the model 100 and the model 4P were both pretty damned good for 8-bit machines. There's an active group still working on hardware enhancements to the model 100 machines.

Naive young comp user :P

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

I always felt the "thousand fonts and clip art and bizarre graphic abilities" were intended to distract the reader from the overall crummy writing ability present in anyone who litters their page with them :P

Re: Naive young comp user :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're entirely correct. That is one of the useless effects they have. XD

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

BTW, the Commodore word processor was not in color, that was the color of the basic screen.

I will not go into the countless hours I spent on the Osborne of my mom's with the tiny screen playing Adventure. Still have my hand-drawn map of the place just for kicks.

Computers were kindasorta pushed on me by my good friend (still is but in Alaska), Mark Blair. He was the one with the TIs and the Commodores and then the Amigas via another good friend (In Alaska), Don Lindsay. Of course both are into computers via their jobs now (Mark and his wife and best friend Theresa work for Charter College doing the security stuff and teaching Computer Sciences and Don runs the show for the Anchorage Daily News newspaper.

Me? I am a USER! I enjoy writing and doing artwork but not at all into the actual hardware and software other than as needed as a USER! <--- note exclamation points!

That other stuff is Bear's job.

Grin.

Imperator

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I remember the Osborne. I never had one, but a friend of Gary's did. He thought it was great because it was "portable". ;p With a tiny screen and weighing what, 25 pounds? Later there was the Kaypro portable, at about the same weight but with a full size screen. Now that one I would have enjoyed. And then came the Tandy 4P, and those I really loved. I was forced to give up using them because of the requirements of work, but I still have two good ones here. If we ever get the barn loft finished the way I want it, then one will be set up so I can use it there for making notes and calculations for my weaving. Two of the looms should end up in that space.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Hehe, even Microsoft Office will let you just install Word :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not exactly, I think. Yes, you can override the defaults and install just Word, but you have to have the entire Microsoft Office installation kit in order to do it, and that occupies several CDs last time I looked. Even then, they will try to install a dictionary, a thesaurus, thirty some fonts, and a bunch of other wasteful crap unless you really know what you're doing on the install. "WordArt"? Who needs it?