Standardising layout so that mantainers don't have to follow `individual' developers homegrown `consistent, easy-to-follow' layout;
Faster parse times.
There are bad ways to do whitespace dependent layout, and there are good ways. Python is the latter, but experience with the former have led to ingrained prejudices. Without whitespace, Python would start to look like Scheme or XML.
Isn't POSIX compliance an all or nothing affair? MS have done everything in their power to make it a one-way compatibility, but it looks to me as if the MS OSs are becoming much more UNIX-like in their approach.
Both the Gnome and the KDE teams have been pretty good about trying to make their applications usable under plain X. Of course it isn't going to be possible to make this work properly: you can't have dra and drop capability under plain X, but there is a lot of flexibility.
The article points out that RISC instruction sets perform better than i86 instruction sets. And I heard a rumour that they work working on JVM support (best of luck to them... they've got their work cut out).
Some posters seem to have the idea that WINE (together with Samba) make it much more logical to use Linux as the backbone of a mixed UNIX/Windows shop, with Linux displacing windows. One could equally argue that NT & Win2k's support for POSIX means that the displacement could work exactly the other way.
If anyone has any experience, I would be interested to know just how good MS's POSIX support is. How difficult would it to build a Linux distro on top of NT? (Debian NT?)
The only article at the Transmeta site I found really illuminating was the white paper `The technology behind the Crusoe processor' which I cited. The Spectrum article does give a lot of technical insights that I hadn't seen elsewhere: eg. about modelling off-chip supporting hardware in software, and specifics about the problems the engineers faced. Readers will get much more out of the Spectrum article after they have digested the information in the two links I gave.
Well, I don't have any insider knowledge into the Crusoe, but I have written microcode for a VAX, and I'm guessing the issues are similar, (if more subtle, with caching and shadow registers, and the sheer complexity of the source architecture). Microcoding feels much lower level than assembler: you really need to have a grasp of the underlying architecture to make it work, and the coding tricks tend to have the same flair as circuit layout: thinking about what data has got how far in its execution path, and trying to figure out how to divide up a task to make best use of the available `blocks' of hardware.
My feeling is that code morphing is the the missing key to making VLIW work. VLIW was supposed to simplify processor architecture, but the designs put forward by Intel have increased complexity, and reportedly disappointing performance.
Re:Laughing all the way to the bank
on
Inside Transmeta
·
· Score: 2
I doubt it helps with parallelism (SMP I would guess is very difficult to do with a Crusoe), but doing so much in software is very exciting. It makes it much easier to design and upgrade coprocessors like math and 3d accelerators, and to support extensions to instruction sets in existing processors. Transmeta seem to be keeping the doors to software changes to the Crusoe tightly under wraps though...
There has been a dearth of good technical analyses of the Crusoe available on the web. There is this official White paper (PDF), and I liked this article by Jon Stokes at at Ars Technica, but apart from that I have seen very little quality information. This essay is much needed.
I interpreted him here as meaning consistently high standards, the idea that everyone's contribution is equally valid: I don't suppose he means that code submissions necessarily pollute the code. His general point is well taken: most of the running on a successful and ambitious open source project is done by a small number of people.
Exacting software engineering techniques such as design by contract are less likely to make their way into the democratic free-for-all of free software than the totalitarian discipline of in house development.
Bill Joy isn't no opponent of open source. He is simply critical of the idea that many eyes are of much use in spotting really subtle bugs, especially ones to do with security. I have to agree with him on this. And yes, Bill Joy isn't infallible - csh was a pretty bad idea - but he should be regarded as one of the pioneers of open source.
I'm reminded of Bill Joy's retort to the idea that many eyes make bugs shallow from the recent Salon article:
"Most people are bad programmers," says Joy. "The honest truth is that having a lot of people staring at the code does not find the really nasty bugs. The really nasty bugs are found by a couple of really smart people who just kill themselves. Most people looking at the code won't see anything... You can't have thousands of people contributing and achieve a high standard."
No. Revenue is the correct comparison: if RDRAM is as bad as Tom's say it is, then it affects revenue on all the lines that are supposed to use Rambus.
I agree with Tom's that RDRAM isn't right for commodity PCs, but I don't buy the conspiracy theory (beyond the fact that Intel would love to lock PC manufacturers into a proprietary technology). Rambus is an ambitious technology, with lots of potential, and Intel backed it because they believed it would perform better than it did. They might be forced to change their mind, but we will just have to wait and see, a surprise isn't impossible.
I don't agree with him, but I thought Dickinson's tone was just right. He was pretty fact oriented, and I don't think he avoided the question, even the one you talk about. What I did hink was wrong with interview was that he got more time than Tim.
The point about obviousness and prior need is a good one, but I think your proposed solution isn't so hot. I don't think inventions should be punished for stepping outside of the framework of recognised needs. The telephone was useful without being needed. Though maybe the idea could be adapted: either demonstrate prior need, or demonstrate non-obviousness. The latter could be achieved by Tim's peer review.
Code *is* covered by copyright. It is designs that solve coding tasks that are patentable. I think I am with Dickinson on this one: changing these ideas over to copyright creates as many problems as it solves.
Well, almost all of the costs involved in making memory are fixed costs, so overcapacity is very expensive. I would have thought that memory prices were pretty elastic though: most peoples approach to buying computers seems to be `memory's so cheap so I may as well have a 128MB machine, even though I don't really need it'. People will just buy the 64MB machines and wait 'til they need it to buy the upgrade.
More important that getting goods cheaper is having better knowledge of prices with which to plan economic activities, especially in agriculture. Too often poor farmers are encouraged to produce cash crops whose revenue advantages evaporate next harvest because all the poor framers are producing the same thing.
Putting better knowledge of who's producing what in the farmer's hands has the potential to avert unnecessary poverty and misery.
Ghana has a reasonably good, if not yet very old, system of compulsory primary and secondary education. In cities, literacy is close to 100%.
How do you recommend your `education to preserve infrastructure' be organised? By government fiat? I think building up communication networks and online repositories of knowledge about the quality of local government, agricultural information etc. would do the job better. Why do you think promoting IT skills must be at the expense of the skills you support?
The project's goals are great, and I think Ghana is a great choice of country to work with. It's important to make a distinction between primary and secondary development needs, where primary development is concerned with improving rates of literacy and basic health, and getting liberal (independent judiciary and police force, free press) institutions into place.
Until these are in OK shape, work on secondary development (improving secondary health care, technical education, etc.) won't make much difference. Ghana has been making great progress on primary development since its new constitution cam into place. Ghana is also influential in African politics, as a country that is getting tings right. I reckon this is a place where the right input can make a big difference.
There is a lot of speculation that if he is elected, Bush will do something to frustrate the DOJ court case. I think it is ill-founded speculation, but MS has been giving lots of money to the Rebuplican campaign chest, and some senior Republicans are certainly opposed to the antitrust case.
A piece of history: there was similar speculation 20 years ago that Raegan would axe the AT&T antitrust case...
He's entitled to his opinion about intellectual property having the same status as normal property. But the way he makes the case is tendentious. The differences between ordinary property and intellectual property are enshrined in law, and I've never met a lawyer who didn't think intellectual property was anything other than messy.
Society would fall to bits without some way of apportioning our use of material goods. The same isn't true of intellectual goods, and to pretend otherwise smacks of intellectual dishonesty.
Slashdot Mirror
`individual' developers homegrown `consistent, easy-to-follow' layout;
There are bad ways to do whitespace dependent layout, and there are
good ways. Python is the latter, but experience with the former have
led to ingrained prejudices. Without whitespace, Python would start
to look like Scheme or XML.
The Nature piece says the times were 5% to 7% faster than the speed of
light. Where does the figure of 300x faster come from?
Isn't POSIX compliance an all or nothing affair? MS have done
everything in their power to make it a one-way compatibility, but it
looks to me as if the MS OSs are becoming much more UNIX-like in their
approach.
Could someone post a copy of the `Warning signs' document from the
above URL here. I can't read it, it's in RTF format.
Both the Gnome and the KDE teams have been pretty good about trying to
make their applications usable under plain X. Of course it isn't
going to be possible to make this work properly: you can't have dra
and drop capability under plain X, but there is a lot of flexibility.
The article points out that RISC instruction sets perform better than
i86 instruction sets. And I heard a rumour that they work working on
JVM support (best of luck to them... they've got their work cut out).
Some posters seem to have the idea that WINE (together with Samba)
make it much more logical to use Linux as the backbone of a mixed
UNIX/Windows shop, with Linux displacing windows. One could equally
argue that NT & Win2k's support for POSIX means that the displacement
could work exactly the other way.
If anyone has any experience, I would be interested to know just how
good MS's POSIX support is. How difficult would it to build a Linux
distro on top of NT? (Debian NT?)
could get PS2s; I doubt those people are going to wait again for the X
box!
Did anyone see the demo at the Game Developers Conference? Any
feedback?
Sorry, kind of confusing. I didn't notice the link I gave was a
mirror site.
The only article at the Transmeta site I found really illuminating was
the white paper `The technology behind the Crusoe processor' which I
cited. The Spectrum article does give a lot of technical insights
that I hadn't seen elsewhere: eg. about modelling off-chip supporting
hardware in software, and specifics about the problems the engineers
faced. Readers will get much more out of the Spectrum article after
they have digested the information in the two links I gave.
written microcode for a VAX, and I'm guessing the issues are
similar, (if more subtle, with caching and shadow registers, and the
sheer complexity of the source architecture). Microcoding feels much
lower level than assembler: you really need to have a grasp of the
underlying architecture to make it work, and the coding tricks tend to
have the same flair as circuit layout: thinking about what data has
got how far in its execution path, and trying to figure out how to
divide up a task to make best use of the available `blocks' of
hardware.
My feeling is that code morphing is the the missing key to making
VLIW work. VLIW was supposed to simplify processor architecture, but
the designs put forward by Intel have increased complexity, and
reportedly disappointing performance.
I doubt it helps with parallelism (SMP I would guess is very difficult
to do with a Crusoe), but doing so much in software is very exciting.
It makes it much easier to design and upgrade coprocessors like math
and 3d accelerators, and to support extensions to instruction sets in
existing processors. Transmeta seem to be keeping the doors to
software changes to the Crusoe tightly under wraps though...
There has been a dearth of good technical analyses of the Crusoe
available on the web. There is this official White
paper (PDF), and I liked this
article by Jon Stokes at at Ars Technica, but apart from that I
have seen very little quality information. This essay is much needed.
Does this mean I will be able to get the ILOVEYOU virus to work under Linux?
idea that everyone's contribution is equally valid: I don't suppose he
means that code submissions necessarily pollute the code. His general
point is well taken: most of the running on a successful and ambitious
open source project is done by a small number of people.
Exacting software engineering techniques such as design by contract
are less likely to make their way into the democratic free-for-all of
free software than the totalitarian discipline of in house
development.
Bill Joy isn't no opponent of open source. He is simply critical
of the idea that many eyes are of much use in spotting really subtle
bugs, especially ones to do with security. I have to agree with him
on this. And yes, Bill Joy isn't infallible - csh was a pretty bad
idea - but he should be regarded as one of the pioneers of open
source.
is that having a lot of people staring at the code does not find the
really nasty bugs. The really nasty bugs are found by a couple of
really smart people who just kill themselves. Most people looking at
the code won't see anything
contributing and achieve a high standard."
say it is, then it affects revenue on all the lines that are supposed
to use Rambus.
I agree with Tom's that RDRAM isn't right for commodity PCs, but I
don't buy the conspiracy theory (beyond the fact that Intel would love
to lock PC manufacturers into a proprietary technology). Rambus is an
ambitious technology, with lots of potential, and Intel backed
it because they believed it would perform better than it did. They
might be forced to change their mind, but we will just have to wait
and see, a surprise isn't impossible.
right. He was pretty fact oriented, and I don't think he avoided the
question, even the one you talk about. What I did hink was wrong with
interview was that he got more time than Tim.
The point about obviousness and prior need is a good one, but I
think your proposed solution isn't so hot. I don't think inventions
should be punished for stepping outside of the framework of recognised
needs. The telephone was useful without being needed. Though maybe
the idea could be adapted: either demonstrate prior need, or
demonstrate non-obviousness. The latter could be achieved by Tim's
peer review.
Code *is* covered by copyright. It is designs that solve coding tasks
that are patentable. I think I am with Dickinson on this one:
changing these ideas over to copyright creates as many problems as it
solves.
Well, almost all of the costs involved in making memory are fixed
costs, so overcapacity is very expensive. I would have thought that
memory prices were pretty elastic though: most peoples approach to
buying computers seems to be `memory's so cheap so I may as well have
a 128MB machine, even though I don't really need it'. People will
just buy the 64MB machines and wait 'til they need it to buy the
upgrade.
of prices with which to plan economic activities, especially in
agriculture. Too often poor farmers are encouraged to produce cash
crops whose revenue advantages evaporate next harvest because all the
poor framers are producing the same thing.
Putting better knowledge of who's producing what in the farmer's
hands has the potential to avert unnecessary poverty and misery.
Ghana has a reasonably good, if not yet very old, system of compulsory
primary and secondary education. In cities, literacy is close to
100%.
How do you recommend your `education to preserve infrastructure' be
organised? By government fiat? I think building up communication
networks and online repositories of knowledge about the quality of
local government, agricultural information etc. would do the job
better. Why do you think promoting IT skills must be at the expense
of the skills you support?
The project's goals are great, and I think Ghana is a great choice of
country to work with. It's important to make a distinction between
primary and secondary development needs, where primary development is
concerned with improving rates of literacy and basic health, and
getting liberal (independent judiciary and police force, free press)
institutions into place.
Until these are in OK shape, work on secondary development (improving
secondary health care, technical education, etc.) won't make much
difference. Ghana has been making great progress on primary
development since its new constitution cam into place. Ghana is also
influential in African politics, as a country that is getting tings
right. I reckon this is a place where the right input can make a big
difference.
something to frustrate the DOJ court case. I think it is ill-founded
speculation, but MS has been giving lots of money to the Rebuplican
campaign chest, and some senior Republicans are certainly opposed to
the antitrust case.
A piece of history: there was similar speculation 20 years ago that
Raegan would axe the AT&T antitrust case...
same status as normal property. But the way he makes the case is
tendentious. The differences between ordinary property and
intellectual property are enshrined in law, and I've never met a
lawyer who didn't think intellectual property was anything other than
messy.
Society would fall to bits without some way of apportioning our use
of material goods. The same isn't true of intellectual goods, and to
pretend otherwise smacks of intellectual dishonesty.