alt Hacker NewsThe peak of fast software was definitely Windows XP, Windows 7, and OS X Snow Leopard. I don't see us returning to that glorious era.
Recently I was frustrated by Windows 11's seeming inability to open a context menu with acceptable speed - right click an item in the taskbar and there is nearly a 1000ms delay before the menu appears. That is unacceptable.
When I need to run old software, I now try to the "minimum viable runner" OS - start with an XP VM and slowly move upwards if it doesn't work. Obviously I'll lock it down from internet access/etc., but it really shows that modern OSes really don't have a grip on performance.
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5w6u56uw • today at 3:20 PM
The peak of fast software is right now within the open source ecosystem.
As much as i dislike Windows, i agree that the versions of the OS from that era were really fast (except for maybe Vista)!! As far as OS X, I had used OS X back around ~2007 - 2010, but can't recall what versions it was...and it performed fine back then too. I've been on one or another linux distro since around 2003 or maybe 2004, and have been running linux as my primary driver for laptops and desktops since maybe 2010 or so(right after i uncoincidentally abandoned OS X). While any issues that linux runs into tend to mostly related to proprietary drives, the majority of the time, things run fast...just like Windows did of that older, golden period of performance - and many times much better! I don't say this to sway anyone to move over/start using linux...and, in fact, linux is still far from perfect! Rather, its to show that there is joy in computing that still exists somewhere in the world. I have found it in linux, but i'm sure others have found it elsewhere as well.