1. I don't believe this will ever happen because if you add a million good and elegant things and you take away one trivial foolish thing then after an upgrade that trivial foolish thing is the only thing you will hear about. Valid points like "but now you can do it better this way", "it caused these problems", "it prevented us from doing this wonderful new thing" never make users happy no matter how true they are. It is (very++) true with a small system (tiny compared to the windows OS) with a few tens of thousands of user so I can only assume this is more true in an insanely large system with many hundreds of millions of users.
2. Write truly performance-critical or chip-level stuff and you write in either assembler or the 'Generic Assembler' C. I agree that most programs that aren't performance constrained should be written in almost anything but C/assembler.
I don't think that how the kernel is written is the problem. Buffer overruns etc. can be avoided by careful C/asm programming, even using the same sort of techniques the various interpreters use. Any technique can be implemented at the asm level,by definition, as all computer programs eventually execute CPU instructions. I can even imagine a useful kernel-level virtual machine for some kernel-specific tasks.
The problem ( and opportunity ) microsoft has is that they want to eliminate other choices by tying their applications (esp. I.E.) to the kernel. This is crazy from a computer science , 'write in layers' point of view but makes perfect sense from the 'beat the antitrust case and tollgate the world' sense. This is the problem: rational computing overridden by business needs.
Rewriting anything in a new language is not likely to be a one fell swoop situation! It is, in my limited experience, very much a 'go to heaven by way of hell' scenario.
3. I believe many ways to do one thing is usually a good idea as long as they are just different ways , perhaps convenient in different contexts, to eventually do one thing. e.g. if you have data structure X and wish to manipulate a variety of its parts for a variety of reasons it is useful to, at the lowest level, force them through a consistent internal API, with one place to do sanity checking. This doesn't mean the external API needs to be or should be this way. If the user ( in this case a programmer at level N + 1 ) can learn some simple task-based APIs and get their work done without ever needing to know the extraneous ( to them ) elements, then this is a good thing. As N + X gets closer to the user, then this becomes more evident. The end user could end up with a variety of 'correct' methods that they could discover. Please don't say 'training' to me -- If I as a user need to be trained before I can do something, instead of being able to discover how to do it, then I will be unhappy with that software. I write 'consulting ware',as joel would describe it, and I am sometimes guilty of writing software that requires explicit training. Our software is used to implement a variety of,mostly linear, business functions but any time I can provide multiple guessable paths that do the same thing, I am pleased.
4.;) my opinions:
I think the best way for microsoft to produce a reliable OS is to have the DOJ split them into separate OS and application companies.
It is the compromises required to lock out competition that cause most of our problems with microsoft software.
That said, the whole virus/spam/worm/trojan thing is a huge opportunity for microsoft to 'solve' the problem with palladium-style crap that an ignorant public will accept because of, oh the irony! , the problems caused by the weaknesses microsoft deliberately took on to be anti-competitive.
More lock-in enabled because of previous customer-damaging lock-in. Oh to be young and have an abusable monopoly.
I believe they are not stupid , they are far more clever
Do you disagree that HP was a source of competiton at one time ( all I'm saying)?
Giving up PA-RISC was a surrender, it may not even have been a foolish one , if the compiler driven itanic theory originated with HP and Intel can't make it work then what chance did HP have?
RE: the 'rant' "If I was running intel I would ask "
I know that much of what I said is ignorant( about the 'processor' I would ask for). I just write software, I have never done any sort of logic design
with verilog etc
I would appreciate any explanation of why what I propose hasn't already happened.
Call me an ignorant idiot if you please, I don't claim anything beyond being interested.
Intel could sell their processors for a fraction of what they do, that is why they are so profitable.
They don't need to compete on price for a niche market and (not here! I suspect) build your own is a niche market. ( do I need HTML tags to format this?)
I believe itanic is a failed experiment. Requiring better much smarter compilers for abitrary implementations running arbitrary code is an insane challenge ( a mixture of this with with JIT runtime enviroments could still be interesting ) and because almost everthing runs a mixture of stuff (or is to trivial to consider i.e a gameboy) It seems to me the system load is completely unknowable to the compiler anyway.
I believe 32 bit, general purpose servers are not long for this world. It is just so much easier to when you can map memory on a huge space when dealing with almost any large problem ( remember 8086 segements and expanded memory and what a pain in the ass it all was?).
If I was running intel I would ask that these huge transistor budgets available now be allocated to many very simple integer processors that could access a group of special purpose (i.e floating point,mmx) processors and even reconfigurable gate arrays. Not just hyperthreading (which seems toe in the water to me) but rather network on a chip.
This would work well with the sort of multi user - multi processor unix/linux software I write and less well where the cpu was , even for this one task , a dedicated machine. So I may be overestimating the value of this because of my own limited experience.
It stil pisses me off that a transister count a 1000 times greater then a 386 doesn't do a 1000 times more (plus give me stuff I didn't even anticipate with on chip communication vs external communications).
To return to topic, intel tried to use their desktop dominance to eliminate all competiton. They are failing but in the area of manufacturing ability and capitol investment ability they are still unmatched.
Whether this is a blip or an omen depends on how well all of intels (process level) competition can band together. IBM,AMD and players like Siemons,TSMC etc together can beat intel. We see evidence that this is happening and it may end up a general motors vs ford ( consolidation of investment rather than ownership perhaps) situation.
I think the intel monopoly will be broken, They don't have a microsoft office etc type monopoly component that they can use to buttress the underlying monopoly. In fact I don't think they have a monopoly at all. The behaviour of a processor API ( exact details public and unencumbered) prevents them from acting the microsoft way,use all of us who have to write code to their ubiquitous client as sharecroppers, forced to serve and completely without rights.
APIs in software should be like this, if you allow other people to write to them then those APIs should be public domain. Implement them better and I'm your capitalist , use them to suppress competion then I'm your revolutionary (viva la freedom!).
I think Intel will do well even if they have to adopt the AMD instruction set. They are a near monopoly and a small part of the reason computers aren't as cheap or usefull as they could be but the big reason for that is Microsoft.
I assume Dell gets better prices on intel processors than their competiters, I assume this is a function of the size and loyalty of Dell. IBM,Compaq/Dec,HP etc were all large players but they competed directly with intel in some way, shape or form (i.e. Power,Alpha,PA-RISC, setting bus standards, form factors etc). I assume this has been a symbiotic relationship for both. Intel locks competition out of the largest box mover without giving up margins for anyone else, this helps with maintaning that formidable manufacturing economey of scale advantage. Dell gets to eliminate R&D as a cost plus gets a big pricing advantage. I think if this vertical monopoly cracks it will mean a great deal. I don't think it will happen, to the degree it does I suspect it will be intel saying to dell "yank them around for us".
Ruiz tweaking Dell is not as foolish as it may seem, they are a long shot no matter how good the AMD product is. Intel can legally copy AMD due to the the results of previous law suits. If Intel has to copy it will and still compete on economey of scale.
I suspect Ruiz, who knows all of this far better than I, is playing enemy of my enemy for Dells competiters.
I see W as the least competent president of my life time , I remember Nixon but I think he was paranoid and unprincipled rather then incompetent.
The idea that foreign bond buyers will support insane american debt because american soldiers are so powerful is something that has never occured to me before.
This could explain the entire the entire bush2 admin maybe they actually know what they are doing.
The assets they reinvest in are, mostly, the bonds that support the deficit. This may well be the modern equilivent of bribing off the mongol hordes.
If so the american deficit isn't the ticking time bomb I see it as but rather something I can't quantify at all and the invasion of iraq not a foolish mistake but a brilliant intimidation of all the bond buying nations.
my apologies to fulcrum. Reviewing my previous post I seem to have implied the secret policmen viewing screens was a theory I was responding too. I merely meant it as an example of a poorly scalable approach with the implication that more scalable approach were likely to be used.
Reviewing my post it reads like a strawman argument, one where one person responds to a false target that is their own twisted interpretation of anothers position. I despise that tactic,one I too often see in political campaigns, and I apologize for my sloppy writing.
This is what frightens me. The new communication technology can possibly allow effective mechanical detection of dissent. I rarely post but this subject seems scarier and scarier the more I read other peoples thinking and the more I think about it myself.
The huge american deficit is a weakness that harms the whole world. Cutting taxes and increasing spending is a receipe for disaster. It is the bread and circuses of our time and I am frightened by the way american voters are allowing this to happen. Gutless politicians, evil campaign mangers and most of all lazy, stupid, wishfull thinking voters make me wonder, what comes next after representative democracy fails.
No.
1. China contains many poor people but the dictatorship itself has vast resources.
2. The monitering of packets is an issue of software/hardware capability and the ability to scale that. Creating software and systems that moniter a billion people is not much more effort than doing the same for a million people. If having secret policeman tring to watch the video screens of everybody on the internet was their methodology then it wouldn't scale well, it wouldn't be reliable and they would be very stupid. I don't believe they are stupid.
This is interesting in a horrible way.
Will freedom win out or will technology allow the ultimate in repressive dictatorship?
The existence of earlier communication tech like copiers was a big part of the russian people winning the cold war on behalf of all of us.
Martin Luthor could challange a very powerfull church largely because of the printing press.
Computer networks are fundamentally different in that they allow the possibility of central monitering and control.
If those russian copiers also printed out a copy in some kremlin basement with the name of the person pressing copy they would have been a lot less usefull in transmitting 'samizdat'.
I read some science fiction a while ago ( vernor vinge?) where automated dictatorships were one of the standard causes for civilization failing. This seemed quite plausible to me.
We are very close to a point where continous monitering and A.I. filtering of that data could give a goverment incredible powers for good and evil.
With terrorism and other crime the opportunity to move previously free, but now frightened and cowardly (i.e. patriot act), societys to this sort of control certainly exists.
How well the dicatorship in china does in using technology to control its people will tell us a great deal about the future of our own freedom.
My company does what www.joelonsoftware.com would call consultingware ( joel is an MS guy and I still study his webiste, that is a strong recomendation ).
We automate companys with 1 to 500 ( and growing, those guys!!) retail systems POS,AR,Inventory,Service,Rental,Payables,GL etc
They have cash register PCs, receiving PCs, office PCs etc ( mostly the difference is attached devices).
we have used over a dozen unices over 15 year history as well as dos/windows.
My experience is that vender support means very little for OS products, if you can't google it the telephone monkey will not help you either. It means a great deal for hardware because the telephone monkeys can send you the part you need , even dispatch a guy who knows what he is doing.
This is the wrong place to complain about microsoft.
O.S. improvements are good for everybody.
MS should be split ( Goddamn you W.puppet ) into an OS and an applications company because what will happen is that MS will use this like they use everything else. It will be used to eliminate choice. In order for users to get up to date virus data you will have to use a whole bunch of choice destroying products IE,MSN etc. This will give microsoft leverage to go after search engine/portal competition as well as keeping the door shut on open browser standards.
can I use this in a comercial system?
who do I pay what does it cost?
I am learning python because it seems unencumbered.
I am certainly willing (HAPPY) to contribute back any bugfix or enhancement I might need for my own use, (it would be a huge ego thing if I could contribute to a usefull open source project)
The key thing is can I use it the "consulting-ware"
for definition see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020507.html
stuff I make my living from.
This is not WW2 where maximum efficiency is the goal because you might lose. In the wars Nelson (US) fights against Milhouse, Ralph etc(the rest of the world) it is very important for Nelson to not to skin his knuckles (lose pilots,look bad on the news) because so much is prestige and image. The foolish use of american power is limited only by the american people and the quickest way to wake them up is CNN fodder like a downed aircraft. For PR reasons a pilot is worth putting in a "gold-plated copter". If it was a serious war against a serious enemy brave americans would be jumping in mass produced cost-effective-designed cobra-equilivents, fighting and dying just like WW2 russians in T34s.
I am a partner in a company that is always looking for progammers, we have a lot of customers and many of them are loking for some extension to our software that they are willing to pay for.
We look first for our requirements in OS and languages.
If these aren't met I do not see your resume.
The next stage is simple test , do X so Y is Z type stuff. ( if you lied on your resume about stuff we care about you fail here)
The next test is to talk with me or bryan and make us think you are super smart (thats what I care about).
Then we hire on a term basis and at the end of that the partners decide if you are a keeper.
In this process my opinion about your abiltiy matters but if the other partners don't like what they see ( hostile,lazy,unreliable,etc) I will be trumped.
We don't give a damn about paper credentials.
Is there a a rule of thumb type process for 64 bit overhead?
i.e. if I build my application (C. source, 2 GB memory) in 64 bit mode what can I expect to pay in CPU time?
My guess is that the loss will be real but trivial, my applications,like most, are bound by disk etc.
I expect the 64 bit OS will be the determing factor, i.e. does it cache disk better etc.
Could we explain to people the differance between megahertz and performance by comparing it to cars?
Sure the intel xxx does yyy but thats a 4 (IPC) cylinder that does yyy rpm vs a a 8 (IPC) that does zzz rpm but more horsepower.
megahertz=rpm
ips=horsepower
if the general public understood that megahertz was rpm not horsepower intels talented engineers could build great things freed from the marketing departments focus on rpm
Slashdot Mirror
1. I don't believe this will ever happen because if you add a million good and elegant things and you take away one trivial foolish thing then after an upgrade that trivial foolish thing is the only thing you will hear about. Valid points like "but now you can do it better this way", "it caused these problems", "it prevented us from doing this wonderful new thing" never make users happy no matter how true they are. It is (very++) true with a small system (tiny compared to the windows OS) with a few tens of thousands of user so I can only assume this is more true in an insanely large system with many hundreds of millions of users.
2. Write truly performance-critical or chip-level stuff and you write in either assembler or the 'Generic Assembler' C. I agree that most programs that aren't performance constrained should be written in almost anything but C/assembler.
I don't think that how the kernel is written is the problem. Buffer overruns etc. can be avoided by careful C/asm programming, even using the same sort of techniques the various interpreters use. Any technique can be implemented at the asm level ,by definition, as all computer programs eventually execute CPU instructions. I can even imagine a useful kernel-level virtual machine for some kernel-specific tasks.
The problem ( and opportunity ) microsoft has is that they want to eliminate other choices by tying their applications (esp. I.E.) to the kernel. This is crazy from a computer science , 'write in layers' point of view but makes perfect sense from the 'beat the antitrust case and tollgate the world' sense. This is the problem: rational computing overridden by business needs.
Rewriting anything in a new language is not likely to be a one fell swoop situation! It is, in my limited experience, very much a 'go to heaven by way of hell' scenario.
3. I believe many ways to do one thing is usually a good idea as long as they are just different ways , perhaps convenient in different contexts, to eventually do one thing. e.g. if you have data structure X and wish to manipulate a variety of its parts for a variety of reasons it is useful to, at the lowest level, force them through a consistent internal API, with one place to do sanity checking. This doesn't mean the external API needs to be or should be this way. If the user ( in this case a programmer at level N + 1 ) can learn some simple task-based APIs and get their work done without ever needing to know the extraneous ( to them ) elements, then this is a good thing. As N + X gets closer to the user, then this becomes more evident. The end user could end up with a variety of 'correct' methods that they could discover. Please don't say 'training' to me -- If I as a user need to be trained before I can do something, instead of being able to discover how to do it, then I will be unhappy with that software. I write 'consulting ware' ,as joel would describe it, and I am sometimes guilty of writing software that requires explicit training. Our software is used to implement a variety of ,mostly linear, business functions but any time I can provide multiple guessable paths that do the same thing, I am pleased.
4. ;) my opinions:
I think the best way for microsoft to produce a reliable OS is to have the DOJ split them into separate OS and application companies. It is the compromises required to lock out competition that cause most of our problems with microsoft software. That said, the whole virus/spam/worm/trojan thing is a huge opportunity for microsoft to 'solve' the problem with palladium-style crap that an ignorant public will accept because of, oh the irony! , the problems caused by the weaknesses microsoft deliberately took on to be anti-competitive. More lock-in enabled because of previous customer-damaging lock-in. Oh to be young and have an abusable monopoly.
I believe they are not stupid , they are far more clever
Do you disagree that HP was a source of competiton at one time ( all I'm saying)? Giving up PA-RISC was a surrender, it may not even have been a foolish one , if the compiler driven itanic theory originated with HP and Intel can't make it work then what chance did HP have?
RE: the 'rant' "If I was running intel I would ask " I know that much of what I said is ignorant( about the 'processor' I would ask for). I just write software, I have never done any sort of logic design with verilog etc I would appreciate any explanation of why what I propose hasn't already happened. Call me an ignorant idiot if you please, I don't claim anything beyond being interested.
Intel could sell their processors for a fraction of what they do, that is why they are so profitable. They don't need to compete on price for a niche market and (not here! I suspect) build your own is a niche market. ( do I need HTML tags to format this?) I believe itanic is a failed experiment. Requiring better much smarter compilers for abitrary implementations running arbitrary code is an insane challenge ( a mixture of this with with JIT runtime enviroments could still be interesting ) and because almost everthing runs a mixture of stuff (or is to trivial to consider i.e a gameboy) It seems to me the system load is completely unknowable to the compiler anyway. I believe 32 bit, general purpose servers are not long for this world. It is just so much easier to when you can map memory on a huge space when dealing with almost any large problem ( remember 8086 segements and expanded memory and what a pain in the ass it all was?). If I was running intel I would ask that these huge transistor budgets available now be allocated to many very simple integer processors that could access a group of special purpose (i.e floating point,mmx) processors and even reconfigurable gate arrays. Not just hyperthreading (which seems toe in the water to me) but rather network on a chip. This would work well with the sort of multi user - multi processor unix/linux software I write and less well where the cpu was , even for this one task , a dedicated machine. So I may be overestimating the value of this because of my own limited experience. It stil pisses me off that a transister count a 1000 times greater then a 386 doesn't do a 1000 times more (plus give me stuff I didn't even anticipate with on chip communication vs external communications). To return to topic, intel tried to use their desktop dominance to eliminate all competiton. They are failing but in the area of manufacturing ability and capitol investment ability they are still unmatched. Whether this is a blip or an omen depends on how well all of intels (process level) competition can band together. IBM,AMD and players like Siemons,TSMC etc together can beat intel. We see evidence that this is happening and it may end up a general motors vs ford ( consolidation of investment rather than ownership perhaps) situation. I think the intel monopoly will be broken, They don't have a microsoft office etc type monopoly component that they can use to buttress the underlying monopoly. In fact I don't think they have a monopoly at all. The behaviour of a processor API ( exact details public and unencumbered) prevents them from acting the microsoft way ,use all of us who have to write code to their ubiquitous client as sharecroppers, forced to serve and completely without rights.
APIs in software should be like this, if you allow other people to write to them then those APIs should be public domain. Implement them better and I'm your capitalist , use them to suppress competion then I'm your revolutionary (viva la freedom!).
I think Intel will do well even if they have to adopt the AMD instruction set. They are a near monopoly and a small part of the reason computers aren't as cheap or usefull as they could be but the big reason for that is Microsoft.
I assume Dell gets better prices on intel processors than their competiters, I assume this is a function of the size and loyalty of Dell. IBM ,Compaq/Dec ,HP etc were all large players but they competed directly with intel in some way, shape or form (i.e. Power,Alpha,PA-RISC, setting bus standards, form factors etc). I assume this has been a symbiotic relationship for both. Intel locks competition out of the largest box mover without giving up margins for anyone else, this helps with maintaning that formidable manufacturing economey of scale advantage. Dell gets to eliminate R&D as a cost plus gets a big pricing advantage. I think if this vertical monopoly cracks it will mean a great deal. I don't think it will happen, to the degree it does I suspect it will be intel saying to dell "yank them around for us".
Ruiz tweaking Dell is not as foolish as it may seem, they are a long shot no matter how good the AMD product is. Intel can legally copy AMD due to the the results of previous law suits. If Intel has to copy it will and still compete on economey of scale.
I suspect Ruiz, who knows all of this far better than I, is playing enemy of my enemy for Dells competiters.
I see W as the least competent president of my life time , I remember Nixon but I think he was paranoid and unprincipled rather then incompetent. The idea that foreign bond buyers will support insane american debt because american soldiers are so powerful is something that has never occured to me before. This could explain the entire the entire bush2 admin maybe they actually know what they are doing.
The assets they reinvest in are, mostly, the bonds that support the deficit. This may well be the modern equilivent of bribing off the mongol hordes. If so the american deficit isn't the ticking time bomb I see it as but rather something I can't quantify at all and the invasion of iraq not a foolish mistake but a brilliant intimidation of all the bond buying nations.
my apologies to fulcrum. Reviewing my previous post I seem to have implied the secret policmen viewing screens was a theory I was responding too. I merely meant it as an example of a poorly scalable approach with the implication that more scalable approach were likely to be used. Reviewing my post it reads like a strawman argument, one where one person responds to a false target that is their own twisted interpretation of anothers position. I despise that tactic ,one I too often see in political campaigns, and I apologize for my sloppy writing.
This is what frightens me. The new communication technology can possibly allow effective mechanical detection of dissent. I rarely post but this subject seems scarier and scarier the more I read other peoples thinking and the more I think about it myself.
The huge american deficit is a weakness that harms the whole world. Cutting taxes and increasing spending is a receipe for disaster. It is the bread and circuses of our time and I am frightened by the way american voters are allowing this to happen. Gutless politicians, evil campaign mangers and most of all lazy, stupid, wishfull thinking voters make me wonder, what comes next after representative democracy fails.
No. 1. China contains many poor people but the dictatorship itself has vast resources. 2. The monitering of packets is an issue of software/hardware capability and the ability to scale that. Creating software and systems that moniter a billion people is not much more effort than doing the same for a million people. If having secret policeman tring to watch the video screens of everybody on the internet was their methodology then it wouldn't scale well, it wouldn't be reliable and they would be very stupid. I don't believe they are stupid.
This is interesting in a horrible way. Will freedom win out or will technology allow the ultimate in repressive dictatorship? The existence of earlier communication tech like copiers was a big part of the russian people winning the cold war on behalf of all of us. Martin Luthor could challange a very powerfull church largely because of the printing press. Computer networks are fundamentally different in that they allow the possibility of central monitering and control. If those russian copiers also printed out a copy in some kremlin basement with the name of the person pressing copy they would have been a lot less usefull in transmitting 'samizdat'. I read some science fiction a while ago ( vernor vinge?) where automated dictatorships were one of the standard causes for civilization failing. This seemed quite plausible to me. We are very close to a point where continous monitering and A.I. filtering of that data could give a goverment incredible powers for good and evil. With terrorism and other crime the opportunity to move previously free, but now frightened and cowardly (i.e. patriot act), societys to this sort of control certainly exists. How well the dicatorship in china does in using technology to control its people will tell us a great deal about the future of our own freedom.
Thats a pretty sad attempt at pretending to chineese LOL ;)
My company does what www.joelonsoftware.com would call consultingware ( joel is an MS guy and I still study his webiste, that is a strong recomendation ). We automate companys with 1 to 500 ( and growing, those guys!!) retail systems POS ,AR ,Inventory ,Service ,Rental ,Payables ,GL etc
They have cash register PCs, receiving PCs, office PCs etc ( mostly the difference is attached devices).
we have used over a dozen unices over 15 year history as well as dos/windows.
My experience is that vender support means very little for OS products, if you can't google it the telephone monkey will not help you either. It means a great deal for hardware because the telephone monkeys can send you the part you need , even dispatch a guy who knows what he is doing.
what I meant to say - Improved product - good. tying monopoly product to other products - very very very bad.
This is the wrong place to complain about microsoft. O.S. improvements are good for everybody. MS should be split ( Goddamn you W.puppet ) into an OS and an applications company because what will happen is that MS will use this like they use everything else. It will be used to eliminate choice. In order for users to get up to date virus data you will have to use a whole bunch of choice destroying products IE,MSN etc. This will give microsoft leverage to go after search engine/portal competition as well as keeping the door shut on open browser standards.
Great Sig. So true it hurts.
can I use this in a comercial system? who do I pay what does it cost? I am learning python because it seems unencumbered. I am certainly willing (HAPPY) to contribute back any bugfix or enhancement I might need for my own use, (it would be a huge ego thing if I could contribute to a usefull open source project) The key thing is can I use it the "consulting-ware" for definition see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020507.html stuff I make my living from.
This is not WW2 where maximum efficiency is the goal because you might lose. In the wars Nelson (US) fights against Milhouse, Ralph etc(the rest of the world) it is very important for Nelson to not to skin his knuckles (lose pilots ,look bad on the news) because so much is prestige and image. The foolish use of american power is limited only by the american people and the quickest way to wake them up is CNN fodder like a downed aircraft. For PR reasons a pilot is worth putting in a "gold-plated copter". If it was a serious war against a serious enemy brave americans would be jumping in mass produced cost-effective-designed cobra-equilivents, fighting and dying just like WW2 russians in T34s.
I am a partner in a company that is always looking for progammers, we have a lot of customers and many of them are loking for some extension to our software that they are willing to pay for. We look first for our requirements in OS and languages. If these aren't met I do not see your resume. The next stage is simple test , do X so Y is Z type stuff. ( if you lied on your resume about stuff we care about you fail here) The next test is to talk with me or bryan and make us think you are super smart (thats what I care about). Then we hire on a term basis and at the end of that the partners decide if you are a keeper. In this process my opinion about your abiltiy matters but if the other partners don't like what they see ( hostile,lazy,unreliable,etc) I will be trumped. We don't give a damn about paper credentials.
Is there a a rule of thumb type process for 64 bit overhead? i.e. if I build my application (C. source, 2 GB memory) in 64 bit mode what can I expect to pay in CPU time? My guess is that the loss will be real but trivial, my applications ,like most, are bound by disk etc.
I expect the 64 bit OS will be the determing factor, i.e. does it cache disk better etc.
Could we explain to people the differance between megahertz and performance by comparing it to cars? Sure the intel xxx does yyy but thats a 4 (IPC) cylinder that does yyy rpm vs a a 8 (IPC) that does zzz rpm but more horsepower. megahertz=rpm ips=horsepower if the general public understood that megahertz was rpm not horsepower intels talented engineers could build great things freed from the marketing departments focus on rpm