Transmeta's offering is a clever marriage of software and hardware. The translation, in particular is done by their software which is called CMS, the code morphing system.
Virtual machines which employ dynamic compilation of bytecodes to some host system have the potential to perform optimizations that are not possible in hardware. It is a simple matter to remove an unneeded null check during compilation or to unroll some loop that runtime profiling determines to be "hot".
Also, virtual machines like the HotSpot java virtual machine from Sun can actually inline virtual methods -- and un-inline them later when the class hierarchy changes. In a programming model where short small methods are encouraged, this can bunch the meaty stuff together and open up some good opportunities for optimization. Try that in hardware -- you'd have to pay the virtual call overhead every time.
And who wants to implement the more bulky runtime code in hardware -- garbage collection, etc. Some stuff is tricky, bug-prone, and belongs in software anyway. There's more to the virtual machine than the bytecodes. Much more. There's a whole context in which the bytecodes are executed that can be very rich.
Oh, and another thing. Intel (and friends) have gazillions of minions working round the clock to make their hardware fast, but how many engineers would be working on your special little chip? Precious few. General purpose hardware is a fine thing.
Slashdot should adopt the approach of listener supported radio in the United States. Instead of a notion of a subscription intended to give the reader some sort of added value, there should be donations, made voluntarily, to support a valuable focus for a community. Then the discussion would not concern how much it is worth for us to get rid of dumbass ads -- instead we would be asking ourselves how much it is worth to us having the slashdot experience. Sure there would be freeloaders, but how many of us would it really take to support the site?
As another benefit, the more free slashdot is from direct corporate sponsorship, the less editorial interference we should expect from some advertiser who doesn't like the way that their new media-whatever is discussed.
Where else do you go for the serious, political information which is important to those of us in technology: privacy rights, the DMCA, the SSSCA, the Sklyarov case? It would behoove us to ensure that slashdot keeps the freedom to operate free from the subtle corruption of advertiser interference.
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Transmeta's offering is a clever marriage of software and hardware. The translation, in particular is done by their software which is called CMS, the code morphing system.
Virtual machines which employ dynamic compilation of bytecodes to some host system have the potential to perform optimizations that are not possible in hardware. It is a simple matter to remove an unneeded null check during compilation or to unroll some loop that runtime profiling determines to be "hot".
Also, virtual machines like the HotSpot java virtual machine from Sun can actually inline virtual methods -- and un-inline them later when the class hierarchy changes. In a programming model where short small methods are encouraged, this can bunch the meaty stuff together and open up some good opportunities for optimization. Try that in hardware -- you'd have to pay the virtual call overhead every time.
And who wants to implement the more bulky runtime code in hardware -- garbage collection, etc. Some stuff is tricky, bug-prone, and belongs in software anyway. There's more to the virtual machine than the bytecodes. Much more. There's a whole context in which the bytecodes are executed that can be very rich.
Oh, and another thing. Intel (and friends) have gazillions of minions working round the clock to make their hardware fast, but how many engineers would be working on your special little chip? Precious few. General purpose hardware is a fine thing.
Slashdot should adopt the approach of listener supported radio in the
United States. Instead of a notion of a subscription intended to give
the reader some sort of added value, there should be donations, made
voluntarily, to support a valuable focus for a community. Then the
discussion would not concern how much it is worth for us to get rid of
dumbass ads -- instead we would be asking ourselves how much it is
worth to us having the slashdot experience. Sure there would be
freeloaders, but how many of us would it really take to support the
site?
As another benefit, the more free slashdot is from direct corporate
sponsorship, the less editorial interference we should expect from
some advertiser who doesn't like the way that their new media-whatever
is discussed.
Where else do you go for the serious, political information which is
important to those of us in technology: privacy rights, the DMCA, the
SSSCA, the Sklyarov case? It would behoove us to ensure that slashdot
keeps the freedom to operate free from the subtle corruption of
advertiser interference.