Wirth's law

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Wirth's law in computing was made popular by Niklaus Wirth in 1995.[1] There are two versions and it is unclear which was the original form, or where the law actually originated. The law states

Software gets slower, faster than hardware gets faster. Which Wirth attributed to Martin Reiser.[2]

or

Software is decelerating faster than hardware is accelerating.[citation needed]

Computer hardware has gotten faster over time, and some of that development is quantified by Moore's law; Wirth's law points out that this does not imply that work is actually getting done faster. Programs tend to get bigger and more complicated over time, and sometimes programmers even rely on Moore's law to justify writing slow code, thinking that it won't be a problem because the hardware will get faster anyway.[citation needed]

An example can be found with the transition to and emergence of 64-bit architectures and multi-core CPUs for which applications and operating systems have been attributed as being complex and financially intensive to design and providing little benefit to current mainstream markets.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Philip E. Ross. "5 Commandments". IEEE Spectrum. 
  2. ^ Niklaus Wirth (February 1995). "A Plea for Lean Software". Computer 28 (2): pp. 64-68. 
  • 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.