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Wirth's Revenge
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Overview
Niklaus Wirth's 1995 essay "A Plea for Lean Software" critiques the software industry's inefficiencies, coining Wirth's Law: software is becoming slower at a rate faster than hardware improves. Wirth reflects on the simplicity of interactive text editors from 25 years prior compared to modern software complexity.
Summary from jmoiron.net.
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Wirth's Revenge
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Community reactions
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Based on 5 sampled comments from this thread. Analyzed 2026-02-05.
- Praise: LLMs can be incredibly powerful tools when used effectively, suggesting that proper training and understanding can unlock their full potential.
- Concern: Many developers exhibit laziness in application development, leading to unnecessary latency issues that could be avoided with better practices.
- Concern: Users often settle for slower results, indicating a lack of urgency in optimizing AI performance, which could hinder advancements in real-time applications.
- Concern: The reliance on bloated software like VS Code, which consumes excessive resources, reflects a broader issue of inefficiency in modern development practices.
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