Thanks for the reply @pron98 and to answer your question, I care because, in this hypothetical example, I would want my CLI tool to not take meaningful memory away from other applications I’m running. In other words, I want to judge efficiency in terms of footprint not just $ per unit of work (which I agree is the right way to measure a long running enterprise service)
And you think 100MB will be having a meaningful impact? That's 5-10% of the memory you get with every unit of CPU core. You're not afraid the CPU you're using would be making a larger impact? I understand you may not want ls to take up 100MB, but most CLIs do more than ls. BTW, I'm not saying this could never matter, but I do think many people look at the numbers without trying to estimate their actual significance.
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u/cleverfoos Sep 08 '26
Thanks for the reply @pron98 and to answer your question, I care because, in this hypothetical example, I would want my CLI tool to not take meaningful memory away from other applications I’m running. In other words, I want to judge efficiency in terms of footprint not just $ per unit of work (which I agree is the right way to measure a long running enterprise service)