Re: Data Base Enginge Efficiency

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 2423

Posted by sub
2005-01-03 16:46:06

[Stephen D.: HyperClip scrolled the document in 27 seconds; UltraRecall in 34. TexNotes did it in 9.]

My guess is that the above variance reflects the different programming routes taken. Hyperclip admittedly uses a standard Microsoft control for RTF; TexNotes probably uses either original code or some open source code segment, integrated within the whole program.

Microsoft doesn’t publish the actual code to its modules the way the open source community does. This means that when Hyperclip wants to edit or display RTF it passes control to a higher-level “black-box” procedure; this is easy to do, but slower than integrated code.

It’s a bit like having different surgeons alternately performing various interelated steps of an operation. The result might be excellent with each surgeon doing what they are best at; however, the necessary communication among them will probably double the total time required.

Overall, optimising code is not easy; that’s why fewer and fewer programmers do it; that’s why programs get bigger and bigger disproportionately to added features; that’s why we need faster and faster machines to do the same things more or less (admittedly in a more stylish way). With PC prices being what they are, most companies find it hard to justify spending time in optimising their software since it won’t make much difference to contemporary machines anyway.

alx

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