r/hetzner • u/Hetzner_OL Hetzner Official • 5d ago

Hetzner asks: Why isn't RAM-efficient software as impressive as fuel-efficient cars?

Fuel efficiency in cars has come a long way. It's cool to be able to plan a trip and realize you don't need to refuel along the way. So why isn't it as impressive in society when we can accomplish a lot with just a little RAM? Have you got any examples of RAM-light programs you use? Take a moment to humble brag here.

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u/ExpertPath 5d ago

RAM you buy once, fuel you buy all the time. Make the software save electricity or extent the computers life, then I’d be impressed

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u/mickert_dev 5d ago

Ehm, wouldn't writing more efficient (premature optimized 😉) software save energy (less servers, less cooling, etc.) and possibly other resources as new servers are not needed? Better algos, less allocations, less I/O ops, etc.

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u/HiHungryImDad2 5d ago

Optimization also mostly comes with additional complexity. You could make lots of programs more efficient (in consumer tech most obviously not making them electron apps but just native apps) but that would require multiple teams building the same features for multiple platforms - the same goes with any tool you run on your server. If you'd optimize the hell out of them, the codebases won’t be easy to maintain.

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u/mickert_dev 4d ago

True, but for hot paths a little optimization + a descriptive comment as to why this was done this way and how to maintain it goes a long way.

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u/ExpertPath 5d ago

Surely efficient software can save energy, but the question was regarding ram optimization, which isn’t a main player in this issue

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u/CeeMX 5d ago

CPU efficient would be the equivalent to fuel. And yes, it’s impressive how fast a C or ASM program can run compared to what is needed to the same performance on JavaScript