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The article is a long rant, but wrong on more premises and conclusions. And yet, by quoting the people who were actually right in the cases they wrote about, it

by acqq 11y ago

The article is a long rant, but wrong on more premises and conclusions. And yet, by quoting the people who were actually right in the cases they wrote about, it appears more correct than it is. There are too many wrong "conclusions" and premises in the text, just an example, here's the author writing about Babbage's and his Analytical Machine: "he was focused on doing math fast and without errors. He didn’t care how complex the machine was as long as it accomplished that." Of course, not true, Babbage had to care. He was designing a purely mechanical machine for years at the time when nobody had electrical logical circuits. He designed the simplest "universal enough" machine in the limits of the technology of his time. And the design was never built. But to claim that his design was "too complex" the author would have to design a significantly simpler one under the same limitations and goals. The whole article is, unfortunately, like this. Uses something that actually happened or somebody did say, "concludes" something else. And the claims that aren't that kind of "conclusions" also sound like from somebody who only very partially understands what he writes about. This doesn't mean that the author shouldn't attempt to write more articles, he can learn something from it (although I'd suggest him to base his writing on his own, specific, experiences) just that this article as it is is a quite bad potential basis for a serious discussion, IMHO. He asks "Is there another hardware, general-purpose or not, that would fit our needs more precisely while being cheaper to program?" The answer is a simple "no." The author just doesn't understand how much of everything was invested up to now for him to pay so little for the CPU's he uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... Note just the "plant stat-up costs in billions" column. And that's just a piece in the whole puzzle. There are big gains for those who'd improve a current state, so the humanity as the whole is much more motivated for the real improvements, where they are possible, than the author assumes. When we remove wrong conclusions after quoting others, the rant can be summed up to just a few claims, one of major being "I'm confronted with different frameworks and libraries, "everybody" solves similar problems, it "sucks" to work this way, maybe the hardware is the main problem." No.

luisobo 11y ago
author here. Thanks for your comment. > Of course, not true, Babbage had to care reference? In any case, the main point is that he was making tradeoffs for his math machine, not for modern software development. Not blaming him, just pointing out it was suboptimal for us. > The whole article is, unfortunately, like this I'd love more examples. I have definitely a lot to learn about writing. > The author just doesn't understand how much of everything was invested up to now for him to pay so little for the CPU's he uses I don't see how "a lot of money was invested" proves how there is no alternate hardware that would make programming more productive.
- acqq 11y ago
  > I don't see how "a lot of money was invested" proves how there is no alternate hardware that would make programming more productive. Couldn't maybe the reason for not understanding be not knowing enough about the theoretical and practical aspects of the hardware development? How about suggesting any reasonable direction for improvement? Practically everybody who's involved with hardware and software constantly tries to make something better, somehow you posit that all of them are wrong for doing what they are doing? It's simple: people propose, sometimes also implement the "alternate hardware." Hardware evolves to the demands, what we have is a result of the evolution. Unsuccessful fail, successful survive. Success is measured in people being ready to invest billions just to be able to produce a new generation of the CPUs, because that's how much it costs. There's no cheaper known way. If you invent something better than the existing state, and it's provably and significantly better, it is going to be accepted. That's how we have today ARM, that's how we don't use Itanium, that's why Intel uses some technology developed by AMD. The leading position of Intel x32 and AMD x64 architectures on the desktops and servers was decided exactly because it was "easier" to program them compared to some other solutions (and the computations were also faster). ARM dominates for having some specific other advantages. All aspects, including these you recognized as important, are actually factored in the success of the current hardware. > the main point is that he was making tradeoffs for his math machine, not for modern software development And this doesn't mean that people just blindly reproduced what he did during the following 150-something years. Instead, just like he did, people constantly questioned what they did and decided based on the limitations they had, just like he. His design was more "mentioned" than actually used. It's the opposite, once more or less independent development recognizes which ideas are the "best" in the given time and the given limitations, people who study the old research recognize that the same ideas were considered or even followed in some older designs. Now we have enough experience that we can study the failed and successful attempts that already answer some questions somebody new to the field can have. > I have definitely a lot to learn about writing. If you write about the possibility of a "better hardware" familiarizing more with the computer hardware and the theoretical and practical basis and limitations would help not sounding uneducated. Rules are to be broken, the "well known truths" are to be questioned to make a change, but the questioning has to be based on some knowledge, when it's in the field where so much is dependent on the knowledge.

by acqq 11y ago

luisobo 11y ago

author here. Thanks for your comment. > Of course, not true, Babbage had to care reference? In any case, the main point is that he was making tradeoffs for his math machine, not for modern software development. Not blaming him, just pointing out it was suboptimal for us. > The whole article is, unfortunately, like this I'd love more examples. I have definitely a lot to learn about writing. > The author just doesn't understand how much of everything was invested up to now for him to pay so little for the CPU's he uses I don't see how "a lot of money was invested" proves how there is no alternate hardware that would make programming more productive.

acqq 11y ago
> I don't see how "a lot of money was invested" proves how there is no alternate hardware that would make programming more productive. Couldn't maybe the reason for not understanding be not knowing enough about the theoretical and practical aspects of the hardware development? How about suggesting any reasonable direction for improvement? Practically everybody who's involved with hardware and software constantly tries to make something better, somehow you posit that all of them are wrong for doing what they are doing? It's simple: people propose, sometimes also implement the "alternate hardware." Hardware evolves to the demands, what we have is a result of the evolution. Unsuccessful fail, successful survive. Success is measured in people being ready to invest billions just to be able to produce a new generation of the CPUs, because that's how much it costs. There's no cheaper known way. If you invent something better than the existing state, and it's provably and significantly better, it is going to be accepted. That's how we have today ARM, that's how we don't use Itanium, that's why Intel uses some technology developed by AMD. The leading position of Intel x32 and AMD x64 architectures on the desktops and servers was decided exactly because it was "easier" to program them compared to some other solutions (and the computations were also faster). ARM dominates for having some specific other advantages. All aspects, including these you recognized as important, are actually factored in the success of the current hardware. > the main point is that he was making tradeoffs for his math machine, not for modern software development And this doesn't mean that people just blindly reproduced what he did during the following 150-something years. Instead, just like he did, people constantly questioned what they did and decided based on the limitations they had, just like he. His design was more "mentioned" than actually used. It's the opposite, once more or less independent development recognizes which ideas are the "best" in the given time and the given limitations, people who study the old research recognize that the same ideas were considered or even followed in some older designs. Now we have enough experience that we can study the failed and successful attempts that already answer some questions somebody new to the field can have. > I have definitely a lot to learn about writing. If you write about the possibility of a "better hardware" familiarizing more with the computer hardware and the theoretical and practical basis and limitations would help not sounding uneducated. Rules are to be broken, the "well known truths" are to be questioned to make a change, but the questioning has to be based on some knowledge, when it's in the field where so much is dependent on the knowledge.