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   Anon Opin (anon_opin@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Jun-2026 00:40:52 JST Anon Opin

   All web designers should be forced to use their design on a tiny laptop instead of their massive monitor for a minimum of one month before they're allowed to ship it.

   • Ódio e Apatia :Ryyca: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chris [list of emoji] (suetanvil@freeradical.zone)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Jun-2026 00:41:26 JST Chris [list of emoji]

     in reply to

     @anon_opin

     A ten year old laptop without RAM upgrades.

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     Chris [list of emoji] (suetanvil@freeradical.zone)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Jun-2026 00:41:53 JST Chris [list of emoji]

     in reply to

     @anon_opin

     So in 1995, I found out about a research project from Sun, a programming language named Self. Self was a Smalltalk dialect but *way* more dynamic--duck typing, but also duck inheritance and duck object layout. Despite this (and here was the research part) it was *insanely* fast.

     Self was FOSS but only worked on SPARC hardware. Fortunately, I had access to the little (shared) Sun box the Computer Science Club ran.

     This was, to be clear, beefier than any PC of the era.

     (ctd)

     Ódio e Apatia :Ryyca: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chris [list of emoji] (suetanvil@freeradical.zone)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Jun-2026 00:41:53 JST Chris [list of emoji]

     in reply to

     @anon_opin

     Anyway, I downloaded Self and ran the installer script. It said, "Your computer has (enormous) Mb of RAM. Self needs (3/4ths of that) to run."

     So I played with it (briefly, because shared), and it was pretty cool.

     The way Self works is that it trades RAM for speed. Specifically, it compiles many versions of the same method on the fly with different types. Which is clever, and also the basis for (among other things) modern JavaScript.

     (ctd)

     Ódio e Apatia :Ryyca: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Chris [list of emoji] (suetanvil@freeradical.zone)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Jun-2026 00:42:24 JST Chris [list of emoji]

     in reply to

     @anon_opin

     But unlike Self (or Java, or Ruby, or Smalltalk, or Julia), you don't really *chose* to run a JavaScript program; it just happens.

     So in order to view a restaurant menu, you will need to run thousands of lines of code on a runtime that very intentionally made the choice to trade RAM efficiency for speed.