Away With the Bloat!
Spotify Client for the console
Make the bloat go away with return to Terminal! Here’s a fantastic Spotify Premium client for the console, written with the mighty rust:
https://github.com/hrkfdn/ncspot
Memory use comparison, measured using ps_mem on Linux during playback:
| Client | Private Memory | Shared Memory | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| ncspot | 22.1 MiB | 24.1 MiB | 46.2 MiB |
| Spotify | 407.3 MiB | 592.7 MiB | 1000.0 MiB |
To get it, just run
# Mac OS
brew install ncspot
# Ubuntu and derivatives
sudo snap install ncspot
or just build it yourself (requires prior rust installation) and off you go!
Away with The Bloat!
The renessaince of natively compiled programming languages such as go and rust is a glimmer of hope in this sea of bloat. Excessive installation sizes and memory usage by applications are out of control. For example, my Whatsapp desktop client routinely eats up to 1.5 GB RAM. For heaven’s sake, it’s only one window with a short list of conversations and a preview panel! Why?
Many years ago I was working on a large patient registration system for Dutch hospitals. Implemented using Borland Delphi native compiler and IDE, Windows GUI client-server app. The executable was 6 MB. The entire installation package didn’t exceed 30 MB. It had 100+ views and input screens, would run on MS SQL or ORACLE back-end, had a fully configurable templated UI and a scripting engine for deep customizations. Where and how did we go wrong ;-)