Slashdot Mirror
Effect of Using 64-bit Pointers?
An anonymous reader queries: "Most 64-bit processors provide a 32-bit mode for compatibility, but 64-bit pointers are becoming essential as systems move beyond 4GB of RAM. Also, the large virtual address space is very useful for several reasons - allowing large files to be memory-mapped, and allowing pages of memory to be remapped without ever requiring the virtual address space to be defragmented. However, 64-bit pointers take up twice as much memory, which immediately affects memory footprint. This is especially an issue on embedded platforms where RAM is at a premium, but even on systems where RAM is plentiful and cheap the extra memory footprint reduces cache performance. Have Slashdot readers done any research into the actual effect of using 64-bit pointers in a 'typical' application? What proportion of a real program's data is actually pointers?"
Now, this kind of stuff might be useful for...um...hard-core video editing...and really, really huge servers, but that's about it. The truth of the matter is that your everyday user just has no need to handle numbers of that size or data of those quantities. There are very few situations where 32-bit processors are actually a problem.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.