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End of Moore's Law in 10-15 years?
javipas writes "In 1965 Gordon Moore — Intel's co-founder — predicted that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double every two years. Moore's Law has been with us for over 40 years, but it seems that the limits of microelectronics are now not that far from us. Moore has predicted the end of his own law in 10 to 15 years, but he predicted that end before, and failed."
IN ten years, according to moore's law python will be 32 times faster than it is now. Right now it's about 1000x slower than tuned C and 100x slower than unoptimized C-code. So in ten years python will still be slower than C running on todays computers. (mean while C will also be 32 times faster).
That is not a rag on python. well no a big one. indeed for lots of things don't need to be faster (word processors) so being 32x faster would enable python to take over development of lots of areas we now use C for.
No the point here is that if python can't even see a future where it's faster than today's other languages before it's obsolete it needs to go on a vision quest. Other than taking over distasteful roles that C refuses to do anymore, what's the point in life?
I think, like the thinking-in-python dude's rant said--python needs to ask it self what high level languages could be really good at that low level laguages will perpetually suck at. And that is multi-processing. thread safety is possible in any language but if you actually are thinking about while you are programming then you have a problem. Too hard. If you modified C to be thread safe intrinsically it would dramatically slow down. But if you modified an already slow language for this then it's not going to make a big difference in speed. Thus proportionally high level language poise to gain the most advantage by multi-processing.
And moores law is going to vector in to multi-processing in the future as a way to sustain itself.
Python should reinvent itself to be the multi-processing language.
Otherwise things like Fortress, which everyone scoffs at these days, is going to go to charles atlas school and be kicking sand in all your faces. (fortress is written from the ground up to assume multi-processing by default: e.g. for-loops always can execute in any order and the local variables are thread safe.)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Do you ever notice that articles or post beginning with a question in the leader are crap?
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