Change Observations

Change Observations

Moore's Law, the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years, has given rise to a number of other interesting observations:

• Wirth's Law is a computing adage made popular by Niklaus Wirth in 1995.  It states that, "Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster."
• Gates' Law is a variant on Wirth's law, borrowing its name from Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. It is a humorous and ironic observation that, "The speed of software halves every 18 months."  (Presumably at Microsoft.)
• May's Law, named after David May, is a variant where, "Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore's Law."

With most of the world's CPUs running at 99% idle, I don't know that I agree with all of this.  We're doing more with less in many ways:

• Enterprise and comsumer systems are easier to use then ever before.  This is thanks, in part, to simple interfaces that just have a high overhead.
• More people have access to more technology than ever, at lower cost, leading to more creativity and educational opportunities for people all over the world.
• Object Oriented Methodologies and Service Oriented Architectures allow exponentially more opportunites of code re-use, driving down the development time for new innovation.
• Open Source Software and new licensing models allow many, many individual contributers to collaborate, develop and perfect massive software initiatives, such as Operating Systems, from all over the globe.
• With new markets and distribution channels, such as app-stores, we see more entrepenureship.  Pull-requests allow for systems to keep themselves up to date with the latest developments.
• Networking protocols are leveraged to distribute the processing power required to drive many of today's advanced applications.  This has allowed new ways for people to network socially and stay connected.

Of course, most "innovation" is really just the same tired old ideas re-imagined and repackaged.  At the end of the day one has to ask if the world is really any better off for all of this change and "progress."  Are people any more fulfilled or any happier?  We're more isolated than ever.  All the toxic stuff required to produce our technology is impossible to get rid of and destroys our environment.  We consume more non-renewable energy than ever to power all of our junk.  The commoditization of software in our Capitalistic and consumer-driven world ultimately just makes information disposable, and you're left wondering if there is any enduring value to any of it.  Destroying information is akin to burning books, and where they start burning books they will soon start burning people.  The right to privacy and the protection of one's personal identity are just two ways people are getting "burned" in a virtual world where information is a disposable commodity.  The long-term prospects are really very cloudy.