You might be misunderstanding. AWS and Google and a few others are hosting everyone’s code, all the big shops and all the small shops and everyone in between. They do things to optimize everybody’s code, because it saves literally millions on their power bills.
Yes I can see that. As a small shop developer, I will make my choice of language based on programmer convenience rather than energy usage. I have never heard any developer talk about "kilowatts" when choosing tech (outside of bitcoin mining perhaps).
So I hear your point but don’t understand why you think it’s arguing against the need for this article? What’s wrong with drawing attention to something you and your peers weren’t thinking about, or doing something to help inform people’s choices?
Perhaps awareness and concrete data of energy usage has to come first? Yes, the article is pointing out something that all the developers you talk to might not know. Doesn’t that make it a good thing? Maybe in the near future you will hear them start to talk about energy. Maybe now that you’re becoming aware, you can be the first among the people you know to talk about the energy usage of your software choices.
Anecdotally, my own experience is that I didn’t hear a lot or think a lot about energy usage until I switched from games & web development to working at a hardware company. My peers now do talk about energy, even though most only write software.
You’re right that most people do choose based on convenience, especially when they lack any other reasons to make the choice. Historically, choosing solely on convenience has contributed to global environmental problems, and people globally are only just becoming aware of the environmental costs of their choices. Separately, Moore’s law only just recently stopped working, so it’s not surprising to me that energy usage has suddenly become more important. Reducing energy use is now one of the primary ways we can increase speed & efficiency, unlike the recent past.
