Unnecessary Computing
I find that “Unnecessary Computing” is a phrase that I’m unfortunately having to use more and more. As someone that generally likes to have modern computer hardware, I’d rather put my CPU cycles to better use than eye candy. As many of you know, I’m an OSS advocate and Linux user. I won’t go into all of the reasons why but I’ll just say that I like feeling like I’m getting every bit of use and freedom from my system that I can. Whereas other operating systems tend to lock you into what they feel you should and shouldn’t be able to do with the hardware that you spent your hard earned money on. Things that I see as unnecessary computing are things that I feel hinder the computer experience rather than improve it.
The first example of this is Compiz. In theory, the ideas behind Compiz are cool, but after using it many times over its development cycle, it never felt like it added anything to my computing experience. Sure, it’s eye candy done right where the GPU handles much of the animation and compositing, but it failed to impress me.
My second and last example is one that is talked about here. That’s right, the Lightbox. I’ve been a front end developer of sorts for roughly 8 years and aside from a single design for a friend, in all of my experience I’ve had no use for it. It provides nothing to the browsing experience aside from slowing down page and image load time for people who use older systems. I know what you’re thinking — “But… what are Web 2.0 websites without Flash and AJAX animations all over the place?”. I’ll tell you what they are — efficient.
April 6, 2008 - mid-afternoon
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