Programming with Low Power Consumption

[zacinfinite]

With the explosion of laptops, netbooks, nettops we have quite heavy processiong power in low electric consumption compared to systems 7 years ago.

I was wongering if I could use a small netbook or a nettop for application programming, kernel hacking and as a small personal apache server?
Why dont programmers use this method to save power bills?

[John R. Graham]

At a guess, because they typically don't pay the power bill. Second guess, the performance of these lesser systems is typically less than a higher-power-consumption workstation: enough to be noticed and to affect productivity.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[PaulBredbury]

Netbooks are fine for running vim.

But programmers have to compile and run their work a lot, to check and debug it, and having compilations take minutes rather than seconds, and runtime checking take 10 mins rather than 1 min, is counter-productive.

[Dr.Willy]

Hello? Netbook? Display size? wtf?

[Goverp]

One benefit of using a netbook would be encouraging developers to write smaller functions and procedures. One of the warning signs is the developer with two 22 inch monitors displaying source code in 8 point type. Odds are, there's an if-then-else statement nested 10 deep and spanning 500 lines (and maybe s sneaky goto to make error handling "easier").

There's a lot to be said for forcing developers to use the old IBM 3277 display of 24 lines of 80 characters. And only 64 Kb of ram, and punched cards instead of disk. Oh for the good old days of the abacus and slide rule. (Disappears into the mist, muttering into beard about coding space invaders on a TRS-80....)
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Greybeard

[Ant P.]

[krinn]

Always amaze me to see green gentoo users.
Seriously, using a source base rolling release distro with green mind... It's just like if the king of Cows own a butchery.

[zacinfinite]

I still feel as if there is some hidden mystery behind processing and power consumption.
Programmers in corporations don't have to pay electricity bills but individual programmers have to!
And I believe most of the time our PSU is far more powerful than we need.

Gentoo philosophy is to Have exactly what u want, nothing more nothing less. So I see no contradiction if i wana build a perfect developmental platform using gentoo, using exactly the power i need and nothing more.

[John R. Graham]

Well, there's no real mystery about the relationship between processing power and electrical power consumption: it's roughly proportional. (Some might say very roughly.) That's because digital circuits based on FETs (Field Effect Transistors) arranged in a complementary configuration only consume power when they change state (ignoring leakage current, which is typically very small). It follows that power consumption is directly proportional to clock rate. Obviously architectural differences affect performance as well but, within a given architecture, the proportionally is perfect.

The rest of your comment seems to be philosophical. If you don't need a higher performance system, by all means, do not get one.

- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

[zacinfinite]

Thats good answer.
My concern is not philosophical, its practical because in poor regions in india, africa and others, one can easily get a laptop these days (government is providing very cheap ones or you can easily get a 2nd hand). The only trouble is Power consumption bills which these people cannot bear.

education is only first step but when u wana tinker with real stuff like kernel programing or app programming then these people require heavy processing and long hours of trial and error (some places dont even have a power supply!).

I guess we gota address our power crisis fast.

[v_andal]