How about the processor optimization as your 8 bit number needs to be packed and unpacked every time you want to use it?
I you read the responses here, there’s enough ambiguity about the choice of 256 users to maybe put a damper on the reflext to gatekeep computer science from a journalist.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t like this line of thinking. In the tech industry there is far too much bloat that we just accept due to cheap memory and storage.
There’s much better algorithmic and datatype optimizations to be made than to design your app around saving 3 bytes that most runtimes probably represent as a long long anyways
True but more generally things like Electron apps, not precompiling classes in interpreted languages’ Docker images, looping through millions of records without plucking only the data you need, etc seem to be widespread and shrugged off.
While writing code you can get in the habit of doing things efficiently and long-term the cost savings pile up. Obviously caring about only this one specific case will hardly accomplish much on its own.
I’m typing this on a 64 bit device. Why anyone would limit something to an 8 bit number in 2025 is really odd.
Whatsapp has 2 billion users.
The difference is 16 billion bits compared to 128 billion bits, or about 16 GB and that is just for the number.
When working with big sizes, memory optimization is key.
How about the processor optimization as your 8 bit number needs to be packed and unpacked every time you want to use it?
I you read the responses here, there’s enough ambiguity about the choice of 256 users to maybe put a damper on the reflext to gatekeep computer science from a journalist.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t like this line of thinking. In the tech industry there is far too much bloat that we just accept due to cheap memory and storage.
There’s much better algorithmic and datatype optimizations to be made than to design your app around saving 3 bytes that most runtimes probably represent as a long long anyways
True but more generally things like Electron apps, not precompiling classes in interpreted languages’ Docker images, looping through millions of records without plucking only the data you need, etc seem to be widespread and shrugged off.
While writing code you can get in the habit of doing things efficiently and long-term the cost savings pile up. Obviously caring about only this one specific case will hardly accomplish much on its own.