“Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.”

[A Plea for Lean Software, http://csdl2.computer.org/persagen/DLAbsToc.jsp?resourcePath=/dl/mags/co/&toc=comp/mags/co/1995/02/r2toc.xml&DOI=10.1109/2.348001, 2007-01-13, Computer, 1995, February, 28, 2, pp. 64-68]
Variation: Software is decelerating faster than hardware is accelerating.
aka "Wirth's law"

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster." by Niklaus Wirth?
Niklaus Wirth photo
Niklaus Wirth 13
Swiss computer scientist 1934

Related quotes

Jaron Lanier photo

“If anything, there's a reverse Moore's Law observable in software: As processors become faster and memory becomes cheaper, software becomes correspondingly slower and more bloated, using up all available resources.”

Jaron Lanier (1960) American computer scientist, musician, and author

"One Half of a Manifesto," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

Ward Cunningham photo

“When I was at Tek, I was frustrated that computer hardware was being improved faster than computer software. I wanted to invent some software that was completely different, that would grow and change as it was used. That’s how wiki came about.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

"Startup mines for riches in collaboration software" in The Portland Tribune (7 March 2008) http://www.portlandtribune.com/rethinking/story.php?story_id=120430910578805900

Marshall McLuhan photo

“The hardware world tends to move into software form at the speed of light.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, The Education of Mike McManus, TVOntario, December 28 1977

Richard Dawkins photo

“It may be that brain hardware has co-evolved with the internal virtual worlds that it creates. This can be called hardware-software co-evolution.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Evolutionary Future of Man (1993)

Alan Kay photo

“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

talk at Creative Think seminar, 20 July 1982 https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Creative_Think.txt
1980s

Arthur C. Clarke photo

“Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

The Odyssey File (1984), also quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 128
1980s

Francis Escudero photo

“Government must provide the hardware - classrooms, desks, chairs, and the software - books, teacher retraining.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Steve Ballmer photo

“[Apple and RIM] are probably restricted, in some sense, to a certain maximum. … If you want to reach more people than that, you sort-of have to separate the hardware and the software issue.”

Steve Ballmer (1956) American businessman who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft

Worth Watching: Steve Ballmer in the heart of Silicon Valley http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=308&tag=rbxccnbzd1 in ZDNet (26 September 2008)
2000s

Related topics