[Tfug] Cheap Memory

[Bexley Hall]

--- Terence Rudkin <trudkin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Dec 17, 2007 6:22 PM, keith smith
> <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > That is how most will look at the statement of "It
> only has 1GB of RAM.".
> >
> > There is another school of thought.... if a techie
> cost upwards of $100/hr in a w2 situation and a Gig
> of ram cost $59 or so and if a little RAM can
> overcome some long hours optimizing code.... lets
> throw some RAM at it.
> >
> > So what are your thoughts?
> 
> That is $59 per user, so I have 1000 users $59,000
> in wasted
> resources.  Or perhaps 15 Years ago writing an app
> that sold hundreds
> of thousand copies., back then it was $300 for that 
> extra meg of ram.
>  It was my job was to make the product fit in 2meg. 
> And you miss the
> real picture. I add that 1G stick and now I run a
> poorly written
> program that goes and sucks up all it can just so 
> it can run a little
> faster and the program I added the memory for is no
> better off.  I run

Exactly.  For the application I am currently
developing, I added hooks to my OS so that I can
(*it* can) tell tasks (processes, etc. -- pick your
favorite term-du-jour) to "shed resources" (memory
and/or CPU cycles) to varying degrees.

(Think: "power management" except substitute
"resource" for "power").

However, this can't be done ex post facto.  You have
to design applications with these potential
concessions in mind.

So, while an application is free to *opt* to use
more memory (off the heap, obviously) as a possible
expedient, it also has to be able to function in the
*absence* of that "extra memory".  Likewise, while
an application can "work ahead" so that the *next*
data is ready before it is "needed", it must also be
capable of *idling* unless absolutely necessary to
"be active" (i.e. give up it's time slot unless
needed).

> two database both with large foot prints.   I can
> run both of them
> fine on my workstation because they are well
> optimized.  But as soon
> as I start one copy of eclipse I cannot run either. 
>  So software can
> and should be written so that it can run in a
> limited memory space.
> And coders should write the code that way.

Or, the OS should give you *real* hooks whereby you
can constrain the resources that a particular task
consumes during its execution (most desktop OS's
have really coarse-grained control over these  :< )

--don


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