Yes, there are things like that now, and much better in fact. Even the most basic of popular compilers will optimise code like that pretty well. But, the better way is much more suited to parallel code.
Code is object oriented, so all you need to do is say something like PLAYER1 can do his own thing at his own speed, as long as he's not killing another PLAYER. If he is, then he has do slow down and let the other player sync up with him. Semaphores and similar locking techniques allow threads to wait on other threads when necessary, but to continue at their own pace when possible. So, if there are a thousand computer-controlled players, and only none of them need to be synced with something, they're free to hit the parallel processing SPEs as fast as they can. Only when they interact with something that isn't able to take the information right away will they need to slow down. The Cell isn't quite THAT parallel though, since the SPEs aren't completely independent (no one would expect them to be probably), so it's not going to get the performance you might expect from eight processors zipping through a thousand characters or a thousand effects or whatever, but when the timing and interdependence issues are taken into consideration, the results should be pretty impressive.
Parallel-aware compilers are aware of threads, and have specific constructs to say things like this thread must wait, or it can continue as long as X hasn't happened, or whatever. There are nice high-level APIs for this in C++, python, etc. What IBM's compiler seems to do is take a little more of this on board without specifically being told to. Personally, I think that's a bit hyped, and that developers will still have to mark their thread synchronisation points. But, that's really not such a big deal. Debugging is;)
The Cell doesn't seem to be that complex. It's a powerful processor, with multiple elements and associated timing issues that you have to be aware of, but that's nothing like the Gamecube or similar, which had all these weird modes and issues that I can't even recall now, probably because my brain blocked it out;) It'll be a challenge for people who don't know parallel programming, and it might frustrate some who imagine that a cpu with 8 SPEs should act like 8 entirely independent machines, each with its own SPE. But, I think games developers these days will take it as par for the course. There seems to be a trend now that only the biggest and best games companies actually develop game engines (ie, right low-level optimised code), while the other companies just rent the technology and develop levels and artwork and scripting based on that engine. So, the big question is how many of the engine developers will get on board early and if they'll be sufficiently inspired and up to the task. I think they'll find a way:)
On the other hand though, some boffins had to code this, and there were probably a few junior programmers involved somewhere too, who can now claim to have been part of it all;)
Your average C programmer doesn't take architecture into account,
That's because, to the average C (or C++) programmer, speed doesn't matter -- ease of coding and debugging and maintenance does. However, that's not the case with games developers (or, more correctly, games engine developers these days), or high-performance computing people (ie, scientists who write weather prediction programs and such). To them, it matters, and they'll code for it. But, they also have tools like MPI and PVM, which are designed to handle parallelism, and will do most of the work for them in a way they're used to, with little or no API-level changes.
The compiler may have pragma instructions or linker bindings for parallelism, which would be easily taken advantage of by higher-level libraries, even if end-users don't know how to use it (though, imho, they can learn easily enough).
There are compiler extensions that allow for multi-threaded code etc., specifically designed with parallelism in mind. However, yes, your point is good. I think the playstation will need some well thought-out high-level engine APIs even if the compiler is good, before many games with optimal performance are released. However, I'll be surprised if the Cell becomes cheap and has good raw performance, but isn't readily adopted and adopted to by the high-performance computing crowd.
You engineer programs in a sense similar to cars, yes. But, you interact with your tools on a much higher level than putting in a pedal and a brake pad. I suspect you do in actual car design too: it wouldn't be a huge step to be able to model a car in a 3D app and ask the computer how that shape of car will perform in terms of aerodynamics, gears, engine power and therefore miles per gallon or acceleration etc.
It's similar with programming. Instead of saying, this is a car, and it goes in that world, and we'll see what happens, you also design the world, and the way they interact, and you do it all at as high a level as you can. So, the compiler can see what you're doing at a fairly high level, and ideally, can understand and optimise that. Similarly, if you're doing programming multiple processors/cores with threads, then you use a compiler that understands threads. You tell it when threads can run at full speed, and when they need to stop and catch up with each other. Then, the compiler can hopefully examine what needs to be done and when, and what processors are available to do it on, and optimise accordingly. This is nothing new; lots of compilers/APIs do this sort of thing now in various ways.
What I want to know is... will this just be limited to a single 8-workhorse cell chip, as the name "Octopiler" suggests, or will it use the promised power of Cells, so that a program will spread its workload across all the Cell devices in your home if you have more than one? Somehow I doubt they're there yet.
Google Video seems to be basically flash, even if these samples are not, so I'd wait and see on that one. Also, I get the impression that Google use some kind of DRM in their flash video system.
Wasn't the next web revolution supposed to be the semantic web? Didn't we already have pretty good webapps? Doesn't this count as evolution, rather then revolution? Are these people not aware of the semantic web future, or are giving up on it, or what?
Oh, thanks. That does seem to be the case from wikipedia etc., and it makes more sense too. I haven't really been following since the earliest hype; sorry:)
He happens to be wrong regarding the actual resolutions involved, but his question was entirely valid. Please don't knock people for asking questions. If no one asks questions, you only get what the first guy thought of. If everyone questions and debates (in a mature manner) however, you get the best people can come up with.
Actually, I'd like to ask a related question. Are Google also providing the national archives with their OWN copy, in an open format, which they are free to use as they see fit? I know that's part of what the Libraries involved in Google Scholar/Books have been offered, and that's the only reason I think they should participate. It's all well and good that Google makes this stuff available online for free, but the stuff belongs to us all, and its digitisation shouldn't be restricted to google.com, or any other.com
Yes, but that's not what you originally said. You originally said something that suggested you expected beta 2 to CHANGE, thereby becoming better. Beta releases don't change; they're always the same beta release, just like Windows 95 is always going to remain Windows 95. Anyway, I'm glad that confusion is cleared up.
Beyond that you do not represent all use cases or operating system and hardware configurations. The fact that beta software worked for you says next to nothing about how well it would work for the rest of the world.
Of course not; it's not my job to draw up use cases. That takes a lot of time to do properly. The fact remains, that the beta releases were very functional. Most of what happened after that was just optimisation. If you want to debate that further, you'll need to track down the changelogs and prove your case, but they don't seem to be available any more from the Ogg Vorbis site.
The fact that OGG is better than WMA 9 means that it is a better codec, not that WMA a malicious attempt to lock people into a proprietary system.
I never claimed that it was; you failed to follow the discussion.
Bullshit, that is exactly what you were claiming right here:
Given that independent tests show OGG as better than WMA 9, this backs up my argument that they weren't just interested in good, low-cost audio codec. They wanted something proprietary.
Well, "backs up" does not mean "proves". I cited that as further evidence, not as conclusive proof in its own right. You can take that or leave it, and overall my argument does not constitute proof. However, I think altogether, it makes a case you'd be foolish to ignore.
No reason except that it is now an expected part of windows, which has a long standing tradition of at least some backwards compatability.
You don't understand this. There is no reason they can't keep their existing codecs, while switching to OGG or something completely different. In fact, that's exactly the same progression that happens in the transition from WMA7 to WMA9. Codecs make these transitions simple.
Anyway, we're never going to agree on this. We've both made our points well, and I suggest we leave it there. I'm sure we're both bored by now;)
From the name, I'd expect it to be related to the digital paper that's been under development in the last few years (not at MS that I know of, but at other companies, and surely available to MS). That doesn't seem to be the case though. Strange; maybe they're trying to get their claws into that name for later digital paper models?
This makes no sense. A software release is a software release. It doesn't become more ready over time, so I've no idea what you're trying to say here. However, I stand by my statement that Beta 2 was more than usable at the time. I know; I used it.
Unless you are asking for trouble or trying to destroy your company you do not ship your core product beta software handling one of the functions that is more important to your users.
Microsoft do that all the time. Windows Media is not a core product. The operating system is, and it is STILL massively flawed. The only reason it's starting to become more stable now is because they're finally giving up their own way of doing things, and looking to tried and tested unix design philosophies for guidance. This is a FACT, which can be seen clearly in their previous network stack, their previous security implementations, etc. Your argument is wrong.
The fact that OGG is better than WMA 9 means that it is a better codec, not that WMA a malicious attempt to lock people into a proprietary system.
I never claimed that it was; you failed to follow the discussion.
Also I believe WMA was introduced with windows media player 6.1, which was released in 1998.
There is no reason on earth that they can't drop that codec in favor of another. That's the WHOLE point of having a codec architecture to abstract such things.
No, cell is one chip with multiple processing cores on board, much like a Pentium with Hyperthreading is still one chip, or like a Pentium 1 had many more transistors than a 386. Where you may be getting confused is that some of the individual cores do resemble previous complete processors, AND that there will be more than one Cell chip used in a PS3, for even more power.
Except that the 1.0 release (read as: stable enough to use in a retail product) of Ogg Vorbis happened in 2002. WMA has been around for a lot longer than that. If it had been around at the time WMA was made I would agree though.
Well, WM 7 was released in 2000, which is when OGG was in Beta 2. That's more than stable enough for use in the proprietary way that MS uses its formats (look at how they drop MS Office formats between releases for instance), especially if Microsoft chose to get on board and contribute to the development and testing rather than launching their own product. Given that independent tests show OGG as better than WMA 9, this backs up my argument that they weren't just interested in good, low-cost audio codec. They wanted something proprietary.
Hmmm, I guess that's an interesting point. However, WMP10 is a whole other kettle of fish, which introduces nasty new DRM etc., so let's not get into that;)
People are able to access non-ms software. They can download it and install it. What do you want them to do, include the browser/media player/whatever of every moron with their own software company on the distrobution CD?
It's not a matter of what I want them to do. If you'd been following the industry, you'd know that. You'd know that the US courts have ruled on this whole issue, deciding that it was absolutely NOT acceptable to expect customers to track down their own solutions to the microsoft monopoly. Changes have to be made BY Microsoft, to redress their deliberate imbalance. Moreover, that was their fallback position, after taking a much harder line and actually wanting to break up the company.
You didn't get my other comments, and much of your reply was missing the same point I just made regarding the anti-trust case, so I won't bother repeating it.
Personally, I've been expecting it ever since Darwin was open sourced. I knew they wanted to be on x86 back then too.
The only reason Apple would open source the kernel but hold back on the rest is if they wanted the open source community to help them write drivers for OS X hardware. That didn't really happen (probably because others had similar suspicions), and so Apple had to do most of the Darwin development on x86 themselves. I expect the sales model of Mactel -- very specific, pre-packaged hardware rather than retail/OEM OS X to compete with retail/OEM XP -- is a direct result of that failed OpenDarwin project.
So having to change a supporting application between OS versions would not be difficult?
Precisely.
In which case they should download a better media player.
Well they could just download a better EVERYTHING, if they had the technical skills and the knowledge etc. However, Microsoft has a monopoly, and courts have ruled that they must enable users to access non-MS software as recompense.
You are trying to build microsoft's inclusion of a relatively crappy media player into an argument for monopoly abuse.
Argument doesn't mean I'm biased; just that I have an opinion and I can argue it.
There is no reason to expect that a media player that was included to provide basic media player capabilities should have every feature under the sun.
That's not what I said, and you know it. I stated that they didn't include the most commonly used audio format in an audio ripper. If you don't think that's strange enough to provide some insight into motivations, I think your insight is lacking.
If people need more than click file and it plays they will go find it.
That's overly simplistic, and not how the courts have decided it should work in this monopoly situation.
If your point was that linux has a different distrobution model then just say that.
Don't be ridiculous; it's common practice to cite examples when explaining something. If I hadn't, you'd be complaining that I was making it up without any facts.
Hooray for ad hominem, figured we would see one here,
There's nothing ad hominem about saying your industry knowledge seems to be short-sighted. That's an honest comment on your industry knowledge, not a personal attack on you.
I have industry knowledge too, it tells me that building a monopoly out of a substandard media player when people can freely download and install better ones is like trying to nail jello to a tree.
Well that would make sense, if you credit everyone who buys a PC off-the-shelf with having the ability to track down and install appropriate replacement software. It's fairly obvious to most that this isn't the case, however.
Yes, that would be normal practice. The difference here is that Microsoft has a monopoly, and changes must be made to redress the balance. Look into the US anti-trust case against microsoft if you're still curious on why that should be.
You make sense if you're talking about anything other than a software development company. Why should MS pay licenes fees to use the MP3 codec when they can build their own?
Well it's a good question, but there is also OGG, which is FREE. So that argument doesn't hold water, which is another reason we must question their motives for doing it another way.
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Yes, there are things like that now, and much better in fact. Even the most basic of popular compilers will optimise code like that pretty well. But, the better way is much more suited to parallel code.
;)
Code is object oriented, so all you need to do is say something like PLAYER1 can do his own thing at his own speed, as long as he's not killing another PLAYER. If he is, then he has do slow down and let the other player sync up with him. Semaphores and similar locking techniques allow threads to wait on other threads when necessary, but to continue at their own pace when possible. So, if there are a thousand computer-controlled players, and only none of them need to be synced with something, they're free to hit the parallel processing SPEs as fast as they can. Only when they interact with something that isn't able to take the information right away will they need to slow down. The Cell isn't quite THAT parallel though, since the SPEs aren't completely independent (no one would expect them to be probably), so it's not going to get the performance you might expect from eight processors zipping through a thousand characters or a thousand effects or whatever, but when the timing and interdependence issues are taken into consideration, the results should be pretty impressive.
Parallel-aware compilers are aware of threads, and have specific constructs to say things like this thread must wait, or it can continue as long as X hasn't happened, or whatever. There are nice high-level APIs for this in C++, python, etc. What IBM's compiler seems to do is take a little more of this on board without specifically being told to. Personally, I think that's a bit hyped, and that developers will still have to mark their thread synchronisation points. But, that's really not such a big deal. Debugging is
The Cell doesn't seem to be that complex. It's a powerful processor, with multiple elements and associated timing issues that you have to be aware of, but that's nothing like the Gamecube or similar, which had all these weird modes and issues that I can't even recall now, probably because my brain blocked it out ;) It'll be a challenge for people who don't know parallel programming, and it might frustrate some who imagine that a cpu with 8 SPEs should act like 8 entirely independent machines, each with its own SPE. But, I think games developers these days will take it as par for the course. There seems to be a trend now that only the biggest and best games companies actually develop game engines (ie, right low-level optimised code), while the other companies just rent the technology and develop levels and artwork and scripting based on that engine. So, the big question is how many of the engine developers will get on board early and if they'll be sufficiently inspired and up to the task. I think they'll find a way :)
Hahhah :)
;)
On the other hand though, some boffins had to code this, and there were probably a few junior programmers involved somewhere too, who can now claim to have been part of it all
That's because, to the average C (or C++) programmer, speed doesn't matter -- ease of coding and debugging and maintenance does. However, that's not the case with games developers (or, more correctly, games engine developers these days), or high-performance computing people (ie, scientists who write weather prediction programs and such). To them, it matters, and they'll code for it. But, they also have tools like MPI and PVM, which are designed to handle parallelism, and will do most of the work for them in a way they're used to, with little or no API-level changes.
The compiler may have pragma instructions or linker bindings for parallelism, which would be easily taken advantage of by higher-level libraries, even if end-users don't know how to use it (though, imho, they can learn easily enough).
There are compiler extensions that allow for multi-threaded code etc., specifically designed with parallelism in mind. However, yes, your point is good. I think the playstation will need some well thought-out high-level engine APIs even if the compiler is good, before many games with optimal performance are released. However, I'll be surprised if the Cell becomes cheap and has good raw performance, but isn't readily adopted and adopted to by the high-performance computing crowd.
You engineer programs in a sense similar to cars, yes. But, you interact with your tools on a much higher level than putting in a pedal and a brake pad. I suspect you do in actual car design too: it wouldn't be a huge step to be able to model a car in a 3D app and ask the computer how that shape of car will perform in terms of aerodynamics, gears, engine power and therefore miles per gallon or acceleration etc.
It's similar with programming. Instead of saying, this is a car, and it goes in that world, and we'll see what happens, you also design the world, and the way they interact, and you do it all at as high a level as you can. So, the compiler can see what you're doing at a fairly high level, and ideally, can understand and optimise that. Similarly, if you're doing programming multiple processors/cores with threads, then you use a compiler that understands threads. You tell it when threads can run at full speed, and when they need to stop and catch up with each other. Then, the compiler can hopefully examine what needs to be done and when, and what processors are available to do it on, and optimise accordingly. This is nothing new; lots of compilers/APIs do this sort of thing now in various ways.
What I want to know is... will this just be limited to a single 8-workhorse cell chip, as the name "Octopiler" suggests, or will it use the promised power of Cells, so that a program will spread its workload across all the Cell devices in your home if you have more than one? Somehow I doubt they're there yet.
Google Video seems to be basically flash, even if these samples are not, so I'd wait and see on that one. Also, I get the impression that Google use some kind of DRM in their flash video system.
Wasn't the next web revolution supposed to be the semantic web? Didn't we already have pretty good webapps? Doesn't this count as evolution, rather then revolution? Are these people not aware of the semantic web future, or are giving up on it, or what?
Oh, thanks. That does seem to be the case from wikipedia etc., and it makes more sense too. I haven't really been following since the earliest hype; sorry :)
He happens to be wrong regarding the actual resolutions involved, but his question was entirely valid. Please don't knock people for asking questions. If no one asks questions, you only get what the first guy thought of. If everyone questions and debates (in a mature manner) however, you get the best people can come up with.
.com
Actually, I'd like to ask a related question. Are Google also providing the national archives with their OWN copy, in an open format, which they are free to use as they see fit? I know that's part of what the Libraries involved in Google Scholar/Books have been offered, and that's the only reason I think they should participate. It's all well and good that Google makes this stuff available online for free, but the stuff belongs to us all, and its digitisation shouldn't be restricted to google.com, or any other
Yes, but that's not what you originally said. You originally said something that suggested you expected beta 2 to CHANGE, thereby becoming better. Beta releases don't change; they're always the same beta release, just like Windows 95 is always going to remain Windows 95. Anyway, I'm glad that confusion is cleared up.
Of course not; it's not my job to draw up use cases. That takes a lot of time to do properly. The fact remains, that the beta releases were very functional. Most of what happened after that was just optimisation. If you want to debate that further, you'll need to track down the changelogs and prove your case, but they don't seem to be available any more from the Ogg Vorbis site.
Well, "backs up" does not mean "proves". I cited that as further evidence, not as conclusive proof in its own right. You can take that or leave it, and overall my argument does not constitute proof. However, I think altogether, it makes a case you'd be foolish to ignore.
You don't understand this. There is no reason they can't keep their existing codecs, while switching to OGG or something completely different. In fact, that's exactly the same progression that happens in the transition from WMA7 to WMA9. Codecs make these transitions simple.
Anyway, we're never going to agree on this. We've both made our points well, and I suggest we leave it there. I'm sure we're both bored by now
From the name, I'd expect it to be related to the digital paper that's been under development in the last few years (not at MS that I know of, but at other companies, and surely available to MS). That doesn't seem to be the case though. Strange; maybe they're trying to get their claws into that name for later digital paper models?
This makes no sense. A software release is a software release. It doesn't become more ready over time, so I've no idea what you're trying to say here. However, I stand by my statement that Beta 2 was more than usable at the time. I know; I used it.
Microsoft do that all the time. Windows Media is not a core product. The operating system is, and it is STILL massively flawed. The only reason it's starting to become more stable now is because they're finally giving up their own way of doing things, and looking to tried and tested unix design philosophies for guidance. This is a FACT, which can be seen clearly in their previous network stack, their previous security implementations, etc. Your argument is wrong.
I never claimed that it was; you failed to follow the discussion.
There is no reason on earth that they can't drop that codec in favor of another. That's the WHOLE point of having a codec architecture to abstract such things.
No, cell is one chip with multiple processing cores on board, much like a Pentium with Hyperthreading is still one chip, or like a Pentium 1 had many more transistors than a 386. Where you may be getting confused is that some of the individual cores do resemble previous complete processors, AND that there will be more than one Cell chip used in a PS3, for even more power.
Well, WM 7 was released in 2000, which is when OGG was in Beta 2. That's more than stable enough for use in the proprietary way that MS uses its formats (look at how they drop MS Office formats between releases for instance), especially if Microsoft chose to get on board and contribute to the development and testing rather than launching their own product. Given that independent tests show OGG as better than WMA 9, this backs up my argument that they weren't just interested in good, low-cost audio codec. They wanted something proprietary.
Hmmm, I guess that's an interesting point. However, WMP10 is a whole other kettle of fish, which introduces nasty new DRM etc., so let's not get into that ;)
It's not a matter of what I want them to do. If you'd been following the industry, you'd know that. You'd know that the US courts have ruled on this whole issue, deciding that it was absolutely NOT acceptable to expect customers to track down their own solutions to the microsoft monopoly. Changes have to be made BY Microsoft, to redress their deliberate imbalance. Moreover, that was their fallback position, after taking a much harder line and actually wanting to break up the company.
You didn't get my other comments, and much of your reply was missing the same point I just made regarding the anti-trust case, so I won't bother repeating it.
Personally, I've been expecting it ever since Darwin was open sourced. I knew they wanted to be on x86 back then too.
The only reason Apple would open source the kernel but hold back on the rest is if they wanted the open source community to help them write drivers for OS X hardware. That didn't really happen (probably because others had similar suspicions), and so Apple had to do most of the Darwin development on x86 themselves. I expect the sales model of Mactel -- very specific, pre-packaged hardware rather than retail/OEM OS X to compete with retail/OEM XP -- is a direct result of that failed OpenDarwin project.
Precisely.
Well they could just download a better EVERYTHING, if they had the technical skills and the knowledge etc. However, Microsoft has a monopoly, and courts have ruled that they must enable users to access non-MS software as recompense.
Argument doesn't mean I'm biased; just that I have an opinion and I can argue it.
That's not what I said, and you know it. I stated that they didn't include the most commonly used audio format in an audio ripper. If you don't think that's strange enough to provide some insight into motivations, I think your insight is lacking.
That's overly simplistic, and not how the courts have decided it should work in this monopoly situation.
Don't be ridiculous; it's common practice to cite examples when explaining something. If I hadn't, you'd be complaining that I was making it up without any facts.
There's nothing ad hominem about saying your industry knowledge seems to be short-sighted. That's an honest comment on your industry knowledge, not a personal attack on you.
Well that would make sense, if you credit everyone who buys a PC off-the-shelf with having the ability to track down and install appropriate replacement software. It's fairly obvious to most that this isn't the case, however.
Well, we're talking about the versions that ship with the OS, and XP is the current version of Windows.
This is basically the same point as someone else made above, so I've only replied there.
Yes, that would be normal practice. The difference here is that Microsoft has a monopoly, and changes must be made to redress the balance. Look into the US anti-trust case against microsoft if you're still curious on why that should be.
Well it's a good question, but there is also OGG, which is FREE. So that argument doesn't hold water, which is another reason we must question their motives for doing it another way.