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Editorial: Size DOES Matter

Size DOES Matter - You Heard it Here First!

This just in - despite reports to the contrary, size DOES matter! Got your attention? Good. OK, I'm sorry, this is a terrible case of "bait and switch". It is not about what you think it is about at all. Instead it is about software, and the ever increasing size of applications these days. Not what you were looking for? No worries - pull the plug by clicking the Anything Goes! link and abandon ship. Still with me? Great. Read on!

Today's gigahertz and gigabyte computers are an embarrassment of riches. They provide so much raw speed and power that it boggles the mind to think that we could possibly invent software that might tax their limits. And yet somehow we do.

New releases of Microsoft products are notorious for being stuffed to the brim with an unending stream of new and "clever" features. Of course the majority of these will never see the light of day with the average user. Windows Vista will need 1 GB of RAM just to get out of bed each morning. Ouch!

Each new and "clever" feature adds more and more weight to the already generously sized executable, leading to ponderously slow software behemoths. Despite paying the size and speed penalty this imposes, the average user will likely never use more than 10% of the offered functionality. The rest just takes up space, chews up time, and kills performance. Macintosh software does not escape from this trend, nor does Linux (although some distributions can be crafted to present a very svelte profile - Arch Linux is an excellent example of this). The software development community appears almost giddy with the possibilities, seemingly inventing new features not because they are needed, but simply because they can.

This is a (small) plea for smaller software. Campbell-Tx.Net believes that software should be tightly focused, each program doing one job and doing it exceptionally well. A 90/10 rule should apply. Implement the 90% of all possible features that are of the greatest interest to most users. Campbell-Tx.Net postulates that this will take only 10% of the space and power that would be needed to create the maximum set. And the remaining 10%? Software bloat, best omitted from the product. Software should give users what they need, not a collection of every conceivable feature that could be stuffed into the executable.

Ever wonder why Mac OS X widgets are so popular? Small, single purpose programs. Sound familiar? See the 2006 Lighter n Faster Awards, on the Anything Goes! page for Linux programs that have held to this mantra, delivering maximum functionality with minimum requirements. And of course, try out any of the CampbellWare software products featured on this website, all of which were designed with size, efficiency and proper feature selection in mind.

Size DOES matter!