BTW, the title should say "(2019)".
I wonder what OP's thinks of IDEs like VSCode. Would they see it as heavy and not great because it's Electron-based? But I find IDEs convenient.
Speed enables more features and also simpler architectures and algorithms, since you can rely more on brute force in higher-level code.
A good WYSIWYG editor will run circles around the fastest text editor. Even if WYSIWYG is a bit slower to open.
It would be preferable for software to be more focused and faster over time, but that doesn't attract people to it.
> Fastness in software is like great margins in a book — makes you smile without necessarily knowing why.
EDIT: I didn't say _AI_ slop; it's just not well-written. In addition to the word salad quoted above, there's unsubstantiated jumps in logic and opinions that undercut the premise (e.g. "Speed and reliability are often intuited hand-in-hand" being followed later by an example of a "faster, simpler" application having "reliability issues"; or typewriters being "slow in a relative sense" while then praising simplicity of operation, task-focused design, and observability of state over speed); it feels like the author wanted to list out some random complaints but failed to tie them together in a way that felt worth reading.
EDIT 2: having now skimmed the article a few times, I think what the author actually wanted to say is not that software shouldn't be slow, but that it shouldn't be _frustrating_; "slow" is a very common way to frustrate, but not the only one.
When it comes to navigating (except public transit), hiking, and route building, Organic Maps[1] is very good. OSM data and offline-first is the way forward for detailed and _fast_ map experience.
For cycling route building I have to mention BRouter[2], which allows you to write a custom cost function that is used to tweak your route preferences.
[1]: https://organicmaps.app/
[2]: https://brouter.de/brouter/index.html