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Comment by wheattoast | Hacker News Reader

“Alternatively, what’d be really nice is if they upgraded“

Easy enough for y’all with techie salaries, but as one of the millions of poor folks whose paychecks barely (or don’t even) pay the bills, it’d be really nice if we didn't have to junkheap our backbreakingly expensive hardware every few years just cuz y’all are anorexically obsessed with lean code, and find complex dependancies too confusing/bothersome to maintain.

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They're talking about people still running ES3 browser engines, like IE8, which was released 15+ years ago and went EOL 10+ years ago. The author could have done a better job clarifying this, but they're not pushing for a world with 2y device lifetimes.

Indeed, they're talking about the opposite extreme from the usual problem we all bemoan in here, which is JS devs being determined to use the newest shiniest thing as soon as it's been announced, instead of being willing to continue to use what they've always used and to wait until the new stuff works across all browsers. This article really surprised me, in how far some are apparently going in the opposite direction. I'm very surprised the baseline mentioned is ES3 rather than ES5 or 6.

The GP's comment - that we have to upgrade our hardware because devs are "anorexically obsessed with lean code, and find complex dependancies too confusing/bothersome" - is surely the exact opposite of reality? We have to upgrade to faster hardware because the bloat slows everything down!

Fair, but personally I’d absolutely prefer slower bloated code with twice the lifespan to faster code that forces me to buy new hardware I can’t afford. But I’m a nearly extinct type of consumer who happily clings to pre-subscription-era software (e.g., Photoshop 7, Sketchup 2017). I understand and begrudgingly accept that businesses couldn’t survive by tending to the desires of folks like me.

Thanks for the clarification. I did not understand.

My knee-jerky reaction to the author’s blithe exhortation to upgrade stems from pain of watching as my prized workhorse (a 2015 MacBook) dies in my arms despite its magnificently healthy and powerful body.

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