When Did We Stop Optimizing Software? | Shop Talk #85

What happened to software optimization—and does understanding what's happening underneath still make you a better programmer? In Shop Talk #85, Dave Plummer answers viewer questions about software optimization, engineering discipline, abstraction, and whether modern developers are losing touch with the fundamentals that once made software remarkably fast and efficient. The discussion begins with a thoughtful viewer question about abstraction: should programmers simply embrace modern frameworks, or is it still worth understanding what's happening beneath the surface? From there, Dave shares stories from his years on Windows NT, including Microsoft's internal optimization tools like LEGO and BBT, how engineers measured performance, and why optimization was once considered a core engineering skill. Along the way, Dave and Glen discuss software bloat, AI-generated code, memory usage, operating system design, retro computing, and a handful of follow-up questions from the recent slot machine episode. Topics include: • Should programmers still understand what's under the hood? • Why software optimization mattered • Microsoft's LEGO and BBT optimization tools • Modern software bloat • AI-generated code and performance • Windows NT engineering stories • Operating system design • ELKS, the RCA 1802, and retro computing • DOS/Windows easter eggs • Slot machine follow-up questions Leave your questions in the comments for a chance to be featured in a future episode of Shop Talk. 00:00 - Hey I’m Dave… 00:26 - Do you feel that modern developers should just embrace the modern abstractions? 01:29 - I wonder if LLMs, built on decades of posts deriding performance considerations, builds a good UX? 02:29 - If optimizations are being trained into AI,.. 03:48 - I wonder when the use of that tool, and the urge to make the system work as well as possible for the customer, ended? 04:53 - We need a catalog of software tech revoking hardware advances over the years. 05:38 - Were there any metrics that indicated how well BBT improved PC performance? 06:57 - Does MS still use some LEGO equivalent? 07:21 - Is there any way to look at the code of LEGO BBT? 07:37 - Did Lego change the instructions (fetch types) as well or only branch jump code? 08:30 - Did BBT provide engineers with optimizations to bake into the compiler to reduce re-optimizing the same things post-compile? 09:00 - How would the compiler know what the ‘hot’ paths through the code were going to be? 09:51 - Why it was done in this way? 10:15 - How do you debug such optimized binary when it doesn’t match the source code anymore? 10:52 - Did the resulting code have to retested for new bugs, or was it somehow guaranteed to run the same? 11:36 - Was BBT invoked every time an EXE was loaded, or did BBT change the actual EXE after it’s installed? 11:50 - How does it shrink the size of the executable? Is this to improve RAM read/write or to improve Virtual Memory read/write? 12:49 - Who is the unsung hero and genius that created and wrote BBT? 13:20 - Who was the wizard(s) behind lego? 14:10 - AI in itself is memory expensive. It’s faster than humans, but in terms of the PC it’s slow. 15:29 - Since so much code is now being written with the help of AI, could it be used to create something like BBT? 16:15 - you think this kind of optimization could be done at the current state of windows ?to hear what think of this 16:37 - Can you do a video on how to do a file search in Windows in less than 10 minutes? Or how to get a Windows laptop to sleep when you close the lid? 17:24 - I’ve never ever witnessed a right click popup menu slowly populate. Are you using a SSD as your boot drive? 17:47 - Why isn’t a text stream considered “structured data”, though? 18:51 - How can the bootloader loading the critical system file if the system drivers are not yet loaded? 20:02 - I believe control-Z in MSDOS was another thing inherited from CP/M via SeatleDOS. Was it an RT-11-ism? 20:47 - If a new os were to be made how should it be structured? 21:49 - What about the microkernel architecture? 22:45 - Can you do a video on ELKS? 23:16 - Have you ever done any coding or have any experience with the RCA 1802 processor? 24:15 - Is there a very basic CS text that had the same effect for you? 25:02 - would like you do a deep dive in all things powershell? 25:30 - I recently noticed an easteregg in the DOS/9x versions…. look at the file timestamp. Do you know anything about that? 26:05 - Do the people at Microsoft call .exe an X-E as you did in the video? 26:42 - Did they show the $6 Million Dollar Man in Canada when you were a kid? 27:22 - Do all Canadians turn the word known into a two syllable word? 28:27 - Who needed BBT when we had SoftRAM?! 29:13 - Glenn , why did you break the video ?? 30:35 - would you talk about how you guys created windows (GUI) when there was no Windows to create the GUI ? 34:54 - Outtakes and bloopers…