I’ve been saying for years that the reason software eats up so much hardware (and it’s advances) is the compiler.
I became a COBOL programmer back in 1983. One of the arguments an old Assembler guy and I used to have was regarding “efficient” vs “easily maintainable” code. Even back in the 80’s computers had become so fast that we were more concerned about the cost of maintenance rather than the cost of processing.
I rewrote a batch “local long distance toll rating” program and reduced it from 10,500 lines to 5,600 lines. It even had “alter go tos” in it. In the process of rewriting it, I found four problems that, when the SME was notified, turned out were problems they were aware of, but had no idea which program was causing them.
Some sections were accessed through “go to” and were accessed from other sections via “perform”, and sometimes “perform through”. It was a mess.
I had been trained by Boeing in “Pretty code”. It mattered. This was in 1993. I’m shocked I still remember this while I can’t remember where I laid down my phone.
“ I’ve been saying for years that the reason software eats up so much hardware (and its advances) is the compiler.”
Also the software/hardware interface. That’s what IBM’s AS/400 fixed.