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Thanks, I do have it in the queue to make more targeted examples. I realize that what's there is a little scattershot and each of the use-cases mentioned could

Thanks, I do have it in the queue to make more targeted examples. I realize that what's there is a little scattershot and each of the use-cases mentioned could use a lot more detail. For example, inside MS we have these reactive hobbes processes that watch log data and incrementally build B-trees to deliver future query responses very quickly. I hope to put some examples like that up in the coming weeks.

Quequau 9y ago
I may be way off base with this thought but I can't help but ask the question anyways. Back in last year's HotChips conference Oracle spent a fair bit of time talking up new hardware capabilities targeting databases and their new ISA extensions that support it. It seems to me that this might be a good fit for some of the things it seems like Hobbes might well suited for. So I wonder if you guys spent any time thinking about that (or any ISA beyond x86).
- kthielen 9y ago
  I am not aware of that work from Oracle, but it would be interesting to talk with those folks! Our main focus has been x86, although there are interesting alternative platforms.
  - Quequau 9y ago
    Hey thanks for the response. I am not a sparc developer, so I can't really point you in the right direction with any certainty. I did a quick web search for the buzzwords they were using in the HotChips presentation ("Software in Silicon") and found this link, which has the slides from the talk among a whole lot of other stuff. My expectation is that you guys might find the database / analytics acceleration stuff of interest. https://community.oracle.com/community/server_%26_storage_systems/application_development_in_c__c%2B%2B__and_fortran/softwareinsilicon/overview https://community.oracle.com/community/server_%26_storage_sy... Anyway, my question was motivated by a desire to inform my nebulous thesis that getting developers, even really smart devs working for major corporations with deep pockets, to target specialized hardware or to do optimization beyond getting code to compile with a favorite compiler is really difficult. My follow on theory is that this is going to create some interesting tension as hardware developers are increasingly motivated to do these sorts of things as Moore's law runs out of steam.

Quequau 9y ago

I may be way off base with this thought but I can't help but ask the question anyways. Back in last year's HotChips conference Oracle spent a fair bit of time talking up new hardware capabilities targeting databases and their new ISA extensions that support it. It seems to me that this might be a good fit for some of the things it seems like Hobbes might well suited for. So I wonder if you guys spent any time thinking about that (or any ISA beyond x86).

kthielen 9y ago
I am not aware of that work from Oracle, but it would be interesting to talk with those folks! Our main focus has been x86, although there are interesting alternative platforms.
- Quequau 9y ago
  Hey thanks for the response. I am not a sparc developer, so I can't really point you in the right direction with any certainty. I did a quick web search for the buzzwords they were using in the HotChips presentation ("Software in Silicon") and found this link, which has the slides from the talk among a whole lot of other stuff. My expectation is that you guys might find the database / analytics acceleration stuff of interest. https://community.oracle.com/community/server_%26_storage_systems/application_development_in_c__c%2B%2B__and_fortran/softwareinsilicon/overview https://community.oracle.com/community/server_%26_storage_sy... Anyway, my question was motivated by a desire to inform my nebulous thesis that getting developers, even really smart devs working for major corporations with deep pockets, to target specialized hardware or to do optimization beyond getting code to compile with a favorite compiler is really difficult. My follow on theory is that this is going to create some interesting tension as hardware developers are increasingly motivated to do these sorts of things as Moore's law runs out of steam.