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Comment by grishka | Hacker News Reader

I remember a video of a guy running an old version of Visual C++ on an equally old version of Windows, in a VM on modern hardware, to try Windows development "the old way". It took about one frame to launch. One. Frame.

By the way, [youtube] [youtube] [youtube] [info] Available ID EXT ────── sb2 mhtml 48x27 sb1 mhtml 80x45 sb0 mhtml 160x90 139 m4a audio only 249 webm audio only 250 webm audio only 140 m4a audio only 251 webm audio only 17 3gp 176x144 160 mp4 256x144 278 webm 256x144 133 mp4 426x240 242 webm 426x240 134 mp4 640x360 18 mp4 640x360 243 webm 640x360 135 mp4 854x480 244 webm 854x480 136 mp4 1280x720 22 mp4 1280x720 247 webm 1280x720 298 mp4 1280x720 302 webm 1280x720 And the units? Apple isn't much better. Xcode takes around 15 seconds to launch on an M1 Max.

edit: probably this video https://youtu.be/j_4iTovYJtc?t=282

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It's at the end of Casey Muratori's Visual Studio rant: https://youtu.be/GC-0tCy4P1U

Not only Visual Studio s up instantly in an older version of Windows running in a VM. Debugger values update instantly there as well, something that Visual Studio can no longer do.

> It took about one frame to launch. One. Frame.

I really liked Win 2000 because of this feeling of speed. Most programs would simply "open" when you clicked their icon. There wouldn't be a loading screen. I remember getting frustrated because I could not look at the pretty spalsh screen that Excel had added because it would flash and disappear in milliseconds. Amd this was on hardware of that time.

> I really liked Win 2000 because of this feeling of speed

Upvoted for bigging up my favourite (relatively speaking) Windows version. Still have my original disks.

Just based on memory, Visual C++ 6 was written using the good old Win32 API, which is just plain C code. Without access to the source code, I can assume that the object-oriented craze and XML fad had not corrupted that codebase. Superb software.

Visual C++ 7 was rewritten to use another SDK, likely based on .Net, and it was noticeably slower. The problem, as I see it, is people don't understand the cost of abstractions and intermediate layers, and add them gratuitously. This has been a trend ever since.

> Xcode takes around 15 seconds to launch on an M1 Max

Not really related to launch time but it’s hilarious how much faster Xcode is when working with Objective-C compared to Swift. I understand why, but it’s still jarring

But imagine if Visual C++ was written entirely in Electron instead! Wouldn't THAT be sweet?

Should be called Visual React then!

One. Frame. Of. What?

I've never heard of someone describing how long something took like this without at least defining the frame rate.

Of video. Which probably was 30 fps. I mean, the splash screen just blinked for a barely noticeable split second before the main window appeared. You double click the shortcut, and it's already done launching before you realize anything. That's how fast modern computers are.

(actually, some things on the M1 are fast enough that I'm now getting annoyed at networking taking what feels like ages)

Why would you assume video is at 30fps? Geographic location? People not in the US (and a handful of other countries) would assume video framerate of 25fps.

Does the refresh rate of a computer monitor get referred to as frames? Usually, it's just the frequency like 120Hz type units. Sorry for the conversation break, but I've just never heard app start up times with a framerate reference. Was just an unusual enough thing that I let me brain wonder on it longer than necessary

It comes across as fairly pedantic. Whether it is one frame at 25hz, 30hz, 120hz or 240hz is pretty much irrelevant to the point.

I am the creator of this video. The screen capture was 60fps!

Oh ffs. First off, I'm not from the US. I've been there for less than a month combined. Secondly, if you do want to nitpick, at least do some research first. The video in question is 60 or 30 fps depending on the quality setting.

    $ yt-dlp -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_4iTovYJtc j_4iTovYJtc: Downloading webpage j_4iTovYJtc: Downloading android player API JSON j_4iTovYJtc: Downloading player df5197e2 formats for j_4iTovYJtc: RESOLUTION FPS │   FILESIZE  TBR PROTO │ VCODEC       VBR ACODEC      ABR     ASR MORE INFO ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │                 mhtml │ images                                   storyboard │                 mhtml │ images                                   storyboard │                 mhtml │ images                                   storyboard │   46.85MiB  48k https │ audio only       mp4a.40.5   48k 22050Hz low, m4a_dash │   49.06MiB  51k https │ audio only       opus        51k 48000Hz low, webm_dash │   63.84MiB  66k https │ audio only       opus        66k 48000Hz low, webm_dash │  124.33MiB 129k https │ audio only       mp4a.40.2  129k 44100Hz medium, m4a_dash │  125.02MiB 130k https │ audio only       opus       130k 48000Hz medium, webm_dash 8 │   56.70MiB  59k https │ mp4v.20.3    59k mp4a.40.2    0k 22050Hz 144p 30 │   37.86MiB  39k https │ avc1.4d400c  39k video only              144p, mp4_dash 30 │   42.59MiB  44k https │ vp9          44k video only              144p, webm_dash 30 │   84.31MiB  87k https │ avc1.4d4015  87k video only              240p, mp4_dash 30 │   70.03MiB  72k https │ vp9          72k video only              240p, webm_dash 30 │  167.27MiB 174k https │ avc1.4d401e 174k video only              360p, mp4_dash 30 │  352.24MiB 366k https │ avc1.42001E 366k mp4a.40.2    0k 44100Hz 360p 30 │  134.68MiB 140k https │ vp9         140k video only              360p, webm_dash 30 │  294.98MiB 307k https │ avc1.4d401f 307k video only              480p, mp4_dash 30 │  233.37MiB 243k https │ vp9         243k video only              480p, webm_dash 30 │  653.31MiB 680k https │ avc1.4d401f 680k video only              720p, mp4_dash 30 │ ~795.07MiB 808k https │ avc1.64001F 808k mp4a.40.2    0k 44100Hz 720p 30 │  548.72MiB 571k https │ vp9         571k video only              720p, webm_dash 60 │  817.18MiB 850k https │ avc1.4d4020 850k video only              720p60, mp4_dash 60 │  651.39MiB 678k https │ vp9         678k video only              720p60, webm_dash Hz and FPS are generally interchangeable but FPS is more often used as a measure of how fast something renders while Hz is more often used for monitor refresh rates (a holdover from CRTs I guess).

Any. Plausible. Framerate. Has. The. Same. Effect. For. This. Story.

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