Tim BrayApr 21, 2023

My laptops since about 2018 have all had 32G of memory. No combination of Lightroom, video streaming, Jetbrains IDEs, Slack, dozens of browser tabs, and recently generative graphics have ever caused detectible memory pressure.

I’m beginning to think that for the vast majority of people, 32G is enough memory, for the foreseeable future.

Show threadJeff Atwood
@timbray I think we'll settle on 64gb over time, so I mostly agree
Apr 21, 2023 at 12:45amWeb
Show threadTill KrüssApr 21, 2023
@codinghorror @timbray I think the modern SSD speeds also play a factor why even 16GB feels snappy, at least on M1/M2.
Show threadJeff AtwoodApr 21, 2023
@tillkruss @timbray plausible argument, but even a fast SSD is so very much slower than RAM: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-infinite-space-between-words/
The Infinite Space Between Words

Computer performance is a bit of a shell game. You’re always waiting for one of four things: * Disk * CPU * Memory * Network But which one? How long will you wait? And what will you do while you’re waiting? Did you see the movie “Her”? If not, you should. It’

Coding Horror
Show threadJeff AtwoodApr 21, 2023
@tillkruss @timbray especially since Apple is now embedding the RAM on the same SoC, so it's even closer/faster
Show threadbagigioApr 21, 2023
@tillkruss @codinghorror @timbray i have an m1 with 8 GB and I'm surprisingly ok with it's performances.
Show threadmempkoApr 21, 2023

@codinghorror @timbray

Anyone consider Alan Kay's argument that if you want to build for the future, you should pay to be 10 years ahead? 32G is probably fine now but in 10yr where will we be at?

I'm at 64GB now on my main machine and have a server with 256GB. I run a lot of jobs and 256GB sometimes doesn't seem enough...

I think to be 10yr ahead today, you probably want 1 terabyte of RAM.