[wxPython-users] wxMozilla

[Christopher Barker]

Mike Driscoll wrote:

> I agree with Richie. 

 > it looks like over 50% have 512 MB of RAM in them or less.

It's not about whether it's a good idea to have programs be smaller and 
more efficient -- it's about how much work does it take to do, and is 
that work worth it? If we all thought small size was paramount, we 
wouldn't be using Python -- and certainly not wxPython -- at all.

One issue with Open Source projects is that much of the work gets done 
to "scratch an itch" -- that is, someone needs a given feature, etc. 
enough to write the code.

wxPython could be made smaller, but it would take a lot of work, and for 
the person doing it, it's a lot easier to buy more RAM than do that 
work. You'd need a lot of paying customers with tight requirements to 
justify the work -- that's why it hasn't been done.

An example : I bought a Nokia 770 last year -- it had 64MB of RAM. The 
30MB or so that wxPython requires was going to tax that heavily, so I 
started looking into trying to reduce that. Before I got far at all, I 
upgraded to a Nokia n800, which has 128MB, which makes the whole problem 
less important. Of course, I haven't gotten around to the port yet 
anyway, and by the time I do, there will probably be anew version with 512MB

-Chris




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Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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