You are right. They such a massive waste of time. HP drivers, hp shop, hp photo, hp bullshit.

HP do at least provide an IT version of their driver, usually 40-120MB, slightly smaller but still massive.

If someone would only produce "fast performance software", they would cream business sales everywhere.

....recently?

I get to see no end of customers that have installed the 'default' HP printer package. I remember 15 years ago a HP printer only needed a 200kb driver to function perfectly.

However, now HP feels that their printers require at least nine different applications totalling around 900MB+ and six of which all require internet access and sit in the startup list dong very little or just pinging up 'update messages'.

Dont get me started on the Stasi like Intenet Control Freak Security suites that lock your network without telling you.

Still, shouldnt grumble, I make a living out of removing them.

- Programming is time consuming.
- Time is expensive.
- With the programming tools of today it's simple to write programs that use up relatively large quantities of storage memory, while memory efficient programming is difficult and tedious.
- Once the basic functions are implemented, it's fairly easy to add more functions at a low cost.

To sum it up:
- Programming large programs (by storage requirement) is cheaper than designing slimmed versions that do the same.
- More functions add less to the development cost than it adds to the consumer price, making it more profitable. (As long as the number of sales is roughly equal.)

Another vacuous V3 article linked to by the INQ. I was hoping that, at the very least, the opinion piece would be by the INQ editors on the INQ site. Nope. It's more stool from the "sister site."

I guess I should be thankful that it's not--yet another--top 10 list.

How long before the inq site is nothing more than a HTTP forward to V3?

...of astonishingly bad business practices.

"Modern software is shockingly bad, needing more and more resources to do the same thing. We need to drop the crap and start real programming again. Programs that do their job and nothing else."

What's really needed is businesses who don't reward bad practices at the expense of good. Before I finally gave up on writing software for good I was frequently negatively compared, productivity-wise, with my colleagues. My crime? I had a lower line count in my code than they did. Why? Because I thought and designed and refactored code so that I had the same amount of functionality in (much!) smaller space.

Cut and paste coding looks good in line count metrics (which is all most managers understand for measurement). Cut and paste coding also makes for huge, bloated, buggy messes.

Coincidence?

It's the developers.

They're like vacuum salesmen, once they get a foot in the door, they try to wedge it open and force you to accept crap you don't want.

Case in point: Nero. The original (Many years ago) was a 17 meg file. It burnt cd's.

The last one I got was 900 megs !!! once it installed, it tried to take over my music, my jpegs, my file viewer, everything.. (They all want to become a "portal" like yahoo, then once in, start feeding you ads and crap you don't want..)

So I deleted in and installed imgburn --- a 2 meg download!! Works better, no crap!!!

Almost everything these days is constantly trying to be MORE intrusive and gain control over your pc - whether it be crappy toolbars (I had to help a pc noob friend remove FOUR from his browser - almost half the browser display was gone!!!) or file management or whatever.

I notice Nero is no longer the burner of choice - developers, take note: You stuff us around, we'll go somewhere else...

Hugs my slackware machine :)

Every time a new version is out, it gets more bloat and useless features. Why would anyone upgrade in the first place? By not upgrading softwares, you enjoy the benefit of faster hardwares. I still use OS/2 3.00; the whole OS takes only 70MB. On my Athlon 700MHz, it is more responsive than my friend's 2GHz duo cores with Windows Vista.

for the "Stating the Bleeding obvious award 2009", bullshit software occupying memory, HD space and CPU cycles have an effect on computer performance, no shit!

Can someone forward this study to the makers of Nero? What started as a great alternative to Roxio is not a bloated package of crap. Jack of all trades; master of none.

I would like to buy software that is sleek and functional, period. If I want to add bling then make it an option, don't force it on consumers.

De Montford University = Leicester Polytechnic

In 1992 the rules were changed which allowed Polys to rename themselves as Universities to try and get some credibility.

Modern software is shockingly bad, needing more and more resources to do the same thing. We need to drop the crap and start real programming again. Programs that do their job and nothing else.

the point isn't to soften up on developers, or to demand less quality from them. it's to get them not to add pointless "features" and tighten up their code.

Its only a university with about 20,000 students, based in Leicester....a similar number to Oxford university

Ironic, I know.

But speaking of users demanding more, would it be possible to add a killfile facility to these comments? Or failing that, just block drashek and rich wargo?

ISAGN.