The computing industry often sacrifices performance for convenience, complexity, or tight deadlines. I focused on making things faster by stripping out unnecessary layers, optimizing core processes, and prioritizing efficiency over feature creep. It’s amazing how much speed you can regain by simplifying instead of stacking. Performance isn’t a luxury—it’s foundational. The key is to treat it as a feature, not an afterthought.
Is UI performance better in apps where user per-minute labor is expensive? How about apps in a time-limited multitasking workflow?
Bloomberg terminal and some point-of-sale systems were well regarded on interactive performance. What tooling was used to optimize their performance?
If we can use LLMs to rewind/recall activity, can we use continuous profiling (e.g. eBPF) to identify interactive hotspots in complex user workflows?
> How about apps in a time-limited multitasking workflow?
I once worked with a taxi company whose despatch system ran on QNX. During peak hours average call times were around six seconds and the system had to be very low latency and reliable. The UI was designed entirely on getting the relevant information from the caller and into the system in that six second window. It was text-only, made heavy use of keyboard shortcuts, and used predictive text before that was even a thing.
The “industry” can design performant systems when there’s money on the table.
The computing industry often sacrifices performance for convenience, complexity, or tight deadlines. I focused on making things faster by stripping out unnecessary layers, optimizing core processes, and prioritizing efficiency over feature creep. It’s amazing how much speed you can regain by simplifying instead of stacking. Performance isn’t a luxury—it’s foundational. The key is to treat it as a feature, not an afterthought.
Is UI performance better in apps where user per-minute labor is expensive? How about apps in a time-limited multitasking workflow?
Bloomberg terminal and some point-of-sale systems were well regarded on interactive performance. What tooling was used to optimize their performance?
If we can use LLMs to rewind/recall activity, can we use continuous profiling (e.g. eBPF) to identify interactive hotspots in complex user workflows?
> How about apps in a time-limited multitasking workflow?
I once worked with a taxi company whose despatch system ran on QNX. During peak hours average call times were around six seconds and the system had to be very low latency and reliable. The UI was designed entirely on getting the relevant information from the caller and into the system in that six second window. It was text-only, made heavy use of keyboard shortcuts, and used predictive text before that was even a thing.
The “industry” can design performant systems when there’s money on the table.