Wirth's law
Wirth's law is a computing adage which states that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware becomes faster.
The law is named after Niklaus Wirth, who discussed it in 1995.[1][2] Wirth attributed the saying to Martin Reiser, who, in the preface to his book on the Oberon System, wrote: "The hope is that the progress in hardware will cure all software ills. However, a critical observer may observe that software manages to outgrow hardware in size and sluggishness."[3] Other observers had noted this for some time before, indeed the trend was becoming obvious as early as 1987.[4]
The law was restated in 2009 and attributed to Larry Page, founder of Google. It has been referred to as Page's law.[5] The first use of that name is attributed to Sergey Brin at the Google I/O Conference 2009.[6]
Gates' law
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The speed of software halves every 18 months.[7]
Gates' law is a variant on Wirth's law, borrowing its name from Bill Gates,[7] the founder of Microsoft. It is a humorous and ironic observation that the speed of commercial software generally slows by 50% every 18 months, thereby negating all the benefits of Moore's law. This could occur for a variety of reasons: "featuritis", "code cruft", developer laziness, or a management turnover whose design philosophy does not coincide with the previous manager.[8]
May's law
May's law, named after David May, is a variant where:
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Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore's law.[9]
See also
References
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- The School of Niklaus Wirth: The Art of Simplicity by László Böszörményi, Jürg Gutknecht, and Gustav Pomberger (editors), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1-55860-723-4.
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- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Gates' law, from the Jargon Lexicon, in the Jargon File (version 4.4.7).
- ↑ Orion, Egan (March 21, 2003). "WinTel trips on Linux?", The Inquirer.
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