Computing minimalism
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Computing minimalism refers to a preference for computer systems that are small and spartan, rather than complex and rich in features, exploiting the motto "less is more" when applying these concepts to computing.
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[edit] Hardware
Minimalistic design has traits of being low-maintenance, lightweight, low volume, simple and is found in so called integrated monolithic design or all-in-one solutions.
[edit] Cases
 Minimalist case |
 Not minimalist case |
The minimalist case shown is compact and does not show its ports directly. It too has only one button whereas the other case has multiple buttons. The minimalist case on the left has no visible drive bays whereas the non minimalist case has unused drive bays that are still visible.
[edit] Convergence
As manufacturing tools continue to improve and cost of manufacturing decreases with affordability increasing, diversity from old heavy technology towards newer compact peripherals are now flourishing such as — from old heavy mechanical hard drives towards microdrives and flash memory; from keyboards towards input like touch screens, and handwriting recognition; from heavy CRTs towards thin output displays like LCDs and OLEDs — the convergence towards spartan systems are now possible.
Below is an illustration from convergence from old large systems to integrated minimalistic systems:
 Here is a Cray-1 (c. 1977) supercomputer capable of about 150 MIPS well less than todays desktop processing capability like the AMD Athlon 64 3800+ X2 (Dual Core) 14564 MIPS at 2.0 GHz. |
 Here is a typical desktop computer with a heavy CRT. |
 Here is a laptop, or notebook computer, used by many academia and roadwarriors. This computer comes with keyboard and touchpad integrated. |
 Here is a Tablet PC with stylus and Wi-Fi with no wires attached. Tablet PCs can be used to view and store many e-books or notetaking. |
 Here is a PDA, with a virtual keyboard that is software based, viewing a website. PDAs can be used to view the web, view e-books, irc, instant messaging. It frequently used in time management and medical field. This device can be stored in a pocket or purse. |
 Here is a BlackBerry used by information media today to send real time story details to the public. And can be used for instant messaging and email. This device can be stored in a pocket or purse. |
 Here is an iPod an embedded computer without many features found on PDAs and desktop computers. It was designed for music but some models are capable of playing games. DAPs are capable of storing information in the gigabytes compared to PDAs which store information in the megabytes. |
[edit] Software
Software minimalism has properties to minimize clutter for aesthetics and to maximize productivity and to reduce resource consumption. Aesthetic minimalism is illustrated by the nonexistance or reduction of desktop icons, window decorations, toolbars or by using smaller compact programs based on storage size and programs reduced to core features as opposed to feature rich programs.
[edit] Working environment
In desktop computing environments, some Windows users believe that Windows Explorer can be a "Resource hog" and/or is bloated due to the amount of memory it takes (usually 10 megabytes) and its excessive features. Computer minimalists replace these window managers with those having lighter resource use and the objects that it contains. Litestep is an example of a "lite" graphical shell for the Windows operating system. This not only affects the Windows operating system, but others such as Unix-like operating systems. KDE and GNOME (popular desktop managers) are widely regarded as using more resources than a light shell such as Fluxbox or IceWM. To keep a desktop uncluttered, a minimalist may remove desktop icons (or keep only as many as needed); all other operations are done by using the operational menu (Start Menu in Windows or Right-click with Fluxbox) or keyboard shortcuts. The result is that only the wallpaper (or a blank background) is left.
Sometimes software comes with unnecessary features and use a large amount of resources (memory, CPU, etc), as minimalists replace these with lighter alternatives to improve performances (and start time in some cases). This tends to become less important as computing power increases, but more important as computer programs (especially operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows) get more complicated or bloated and require more resources. It is also useful if one wishes to use an older, less powerful computer instead of upgrading in order to support a more resource-intensive environment.
Most web browsers use GUIs with features such as tabbed web browsing. Minimalists may consider this to be a resource hog. Furthermore, it is not considered "advanced" (or "leet") in their respective social community. They may use a text based web browser such as ELinks or Lynx since they do not use much memory and are not cluttered with menus; most operations are done with the keyboard. That said, even in this situation there are varying degrees of minimalism: ELinks is larger and more feature-rich than Lynx.
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Phantom load, or overhead, is what is commonly found in power grids. Electricians know it takes extra electricity to deliver power because powerlines themselves have a resistance property or defer energy in other forms such as heat and vibration, as superconductors have little or no resistance. That analogy can be applied to comparisons between the poweruser and minimalist in that the extra overhead to process these bloatware programs like these toy widget monitoring programs and eyecandy/feature rich programs adds additional time to process information because the time slices dedicated to these non-essential programs are not dedicated to processing content itself but are dedicated to presentation processing. Note that an extreme minimalist uses textual programs because window managers and graphical objects and the rendering algorithms themselves consume resources and time. Also the textual web browser doesn't have to download pictures just the textual representation — the text alone.
In Handheld devices and embedded computing environments, such as PDAs, using PalmOS or WindowsCE, the use of minimalism is used differently due to the limitations such as limited battery life, limited program resources, and limited input/output space. They attempt to minimize any sort of interactivity. Each code execution on these devices amounts to consumption of energy and the devices tend to be placed on power saving suspend mode to extend battery life, in some cases not providing energy to backlight during operation. Furthermore, the interface design and programming development kits of these devices advocate emphasis on very simple user interfaces and very simple interactions though heavy dependence on the digitizer and information be quickly obtainable, like the PalmOS API find feature calls that scours though many program databases. Programs on these devices tend to be limited to basic core features found on desktop equivalents such as those found on Opera web browser ports.
[edit] Programming
In programming language design, it is considered good practice to attempt to express language features in function of already existing language features, which relates directly to minimalism. For instance, in the Scheme programming language, control structures like a while loop need not be defined at the language level, as they can be implemented using hygienic macros, thus making the language specification smaller (which is minimalist) and reusing existing features.
[edit] Paradoxes and tradeoffs
[edit] Hardware
- In some cases, one must make a tradeoff between minimalistic hardware requirements and minimalistic software requirements. For example, an external modem may use fewer resources than an softmodem since the latter relies on the CPU of a computer rather than its own built in chip. Some may not appreciate an extra hardware component on their workstation and use an internal modem instead.
- Restrictions on freedoms of general computing and limited user experience are expected with minimalism, as manufactures do not implement features found on desktop computers because the system becomes tailored to its environment. A minimalist may defer computing or sacrifice traits to accentuate other traits. General purpose computing that desktop users take for granted may be replaced with more specialized systems or uses. For example, a router is better suited to handling network traffic between the LAN and the outside Internet because of its network security and design specialization without any general purpose computing elements, which also hardends the device from being attacked or proned to failure. Also, gaming consoles pool video game developer talent and highly integrate hardware for performance and for reduced cost to make it affordable.
- Minimalism restricts upgradeability, as it is optimized and integrated to its environment.
- Integration can lead to costly repairs. On the realm of desktop computing, a choice between monolithic versus modular can be difficult, as computer manufactures have been working on so called form factors that attempt to minimize space. The problem with these nonstandard (proprietary) form factors is that they are not widely supported due to the lack of compatible motherboards for upgradability or replacement. Let's say you have a motherboard that has a blown out capacitor, and you cannot replace the capacitor. You will have to replace both the motherboard and the case, and sometimes the CPU and memory, resulting in heavy repair costs. The other peripherals are viable to many form factors. An ATX case for example may be viable for years of maintenance compared to an small form factor case which not be viable for repair because it uses a propeitary motherboard design form factor.
- As they provide benefits of mobility and decreased weight burden and compactness, many digital devices such PDAs, digital audio players, smart phones, kiosks, ATMs, electronic voting machines make use of computing minimalism ideas. A minimalists may favor light weight and compact handheld computer than the heavier highly customizable desktop computer.
[edit] Software
- Using a light shell may lack a notification area and may need a person to manually check a process manager every now and again to know which process is being run. One needs to balance between ease of use and minimalism.
- While some find it easier to have everything on the desktop, minimalist find replacing GUI equivalents with hotkeys or text consoles provides for better micromanagement, to maximize actions per minute or minimize input for further automation.
- Another benefit of removing toolbars and other window decorations allows for more screen space available for content.
- In addition, disabling or removing software code (such as daemons that check email) reduces loading times and waiting times and interactive latency and interruptions and wasted time slices and memory-footprint for more important tasks, at the expense of the burden of manually re-enabling them or re-loading the program.
- Although users may not like the idea of getting features they do not use in their software, they may alter or remove parts of the software in order to conserve space, improve performance, or suit their personal preferences, an approach that may result in unpredictable behavior if the altered sections are critical to the operation of the software.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
- Software bloat
- Featuritis
- Unix - (originally) a minimalistic operating system
- Wirth's law
- Plan 9 from Bell Labs - the successor of Unix that tries to restore simplicity and minimalism
- Scheme, Oberon, and C are examples of popular minimalistic programming languages
- Handheld computing
- Embedded computers
