Why Are Software Programs Getting So Big?

[brandondrury]

I've noticed a trend lately that computer software keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It makes sense that as we progress further into the future, the power of the software we use will increase. However, I'm seeing programs that should be tiny end up being huge.

For example:

We needed a driver for an HP Printer. The download was 140 MB!!! What the hell are they putting into these drivers? I know that this one was bundled with HPs little program for editing images. My Photoshop install file is only like 70MB. You can't tell me that their software is going to have anywhere near the features of Photoshop. The HP program should be 3 MB max!

I liked into this Podcasting thing recently and had to install Itunes. Of course, I had to install Quicktime too. I hate Quicktime with a passion. So I went to uninstall it today. You see, I use something called Quicktime Alternative. The alternative is 1.5MB. Quicktime is 84MB. Why???

Brandon

[Smitty]

I fell into the same problem with the HP Driver, and I have used their photo editor option to see what was so special, and its really just a glorified paint program. There's not really any options on it that make it extremely useful except for maybe the resizing, but that can be done in Photoshop as well. It doesn't make sense to me either, and I hate it when they bundle the stuff together. I did the Quicktime update (not a Quicktime fan either) and noticed that the iTunes junk was installed as well. iTunes, to me, is about as useless a program as anything and in the long run ended up dying on my computer several times.

[guitar junkie]

a whole lot of this is due in part to sloppy coding....

shoot i am just a kid yet i can remember when a 1MB was a huge file!

heck the first computer i ever used has like 32MG of RAM

and 4 gigs on the drive!

nowdays that is just how much the OS takes up in space!

they make files that big because they can.

[Crandles]

You'd expect the coding to get more efficent as time goes on, but thats pretty much only seen in open-source stuff. Commercial software just keeps getting more and more bloated as time goes on.

[brandondrury]

This seams to be especially the case in a situation like HP where you are buying hardware. They don't seam to mind all that crap that destroys your computer. Of course, this is good for them because you may buy their latest computer.

Brandon

[tyger373]

A lot of times coding is so long and sloppy on big time projects because there is such a large amount of programmers working together to make one program. Each programmer is designated for perhaps a couple sub programs. Each programmer has their own style and when you try to put everything together it is a mess. It is quicker to do things this way.

[Toadail]

Yeah isn't it nice to see "progress" in the computer world? Bloatware, everywhere! You guys are right, if it's a commercial program, it's probably gonna be big and not as useful as it should be for the size. :P *cough* Windows

Speaking of Windows, when is someone gonna finally leak the code out onto the net? Maybe then we'd see some progress.

[brandondrury]

I have a feeling that I won't be switching to the new Windows for another 5 years. I usually dont' find much incentive to quit using whatever I have at the time. I quit using Window 98 in 2002.

Brandon

[dach]

Up until 2 weeks ago, I normally would be typing this on a 98SE machine... I finally got a laptop for internet..... the old box still runs like a charm though.... I'm going to recycle it back into the studio... there's nothing wrong with using something that works.... My spare PT system still has OS8 point something which is much older than Win98... who cares...

[brandondrury]

I'm going to recycle it back into the studio... there's nothing wrong with using something that works

Good call! I find it silly that people want 1 GB of Ram and 3Ghz processors to check email and Ebay. I was doing this just fine with my P3 450Mhz with 256 MB of RAM (I paid extra to get that much RAM).

I used a 550Mhz machine as my main home computer until last year. It did just fine. I was made fun of, but the machine was not slow. How fast does a computer need to be to run Internet Explorer?

Brandon