7 ms·

If necessity is the mother of invention, then we'll need a lot better software shortly.

by hindsightbias 9y ago

tzahola 9y ago
Bye bye JavaScript
- bjoli 9y ago
  Let's just hire Mike Pall to make a JavaScript engine.
- beedogs 9y ago
  And good riddance.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Hello Forth.pl
- bearjaws 9y ago
  Sure Javascript could be more efficient but it's not like everyone developing it is waiting for the 2nm Intel process to fix it...
lvoudour 9y ago
I agree. And barring some groundbreaking invention that completely alters the hardware landscape, I think the trend will be heterogeneous/domain specific ICs. Which means new software development paradigms as well.
- qznc 9y ago
  Coincidentally,I had my PhD defense yesterday. This trend is the primary motivation for my work. http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/phd http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/phd The research project is http://invasic.de http://invasic.de
  - watersb 9y ago
    Congratulations!
  - r00fus 9y ago
    Impressive! Is it normal for edu .de pages to be in English?
- pjc50 9y ago
  These are really hard to sell unless the domain has already taken off widely. This has only really happened to graphics accelerators and to a lesser extent crypto.
setquk 9y ago
I can’t help thinking we should have headed down this path a long time ago. It’s harder to go backwards.
- jchb 9y ago
  If we are talking about just-in-time, managed vs ahead-of-time, compiled-to-native, parts of the industry have already been changing course in last 5 years - even if not always with full commitment, but more of a "just in case". Java and .NET platforms has been gaining ahead-of-time compilation support from the main vendors. Microsoft has been reviving C++ support. Various new programming languages with static-typing and high performance as a priority are gaining traction.
  - setquk 9y ago
    It's not so much the underlying technology but what we have built upon it.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    On Microsoft's case it is even more radical, UWP is basically the initial design for .NET, based on COM as ABI instead of a managed one, hence .NET Native and C++ as main languages. I really like this change of course.
- phaedrus 9y ago
  Recently I've been working with some legacy Win32 C/C++ code and had the thought, why don't I take all of these hard-coded #defines and Win32 message numbers, window-class names, etc. and put these magic numbers in an Sqlite database instead? Of course I'd be loading a lot of data from disk into RAM that would have simply been encoded as immediate values in the executable before. But my rough estimate still puts this at (at least) an order of magnitude less RAM than abstraction layers like WPF use. And that's when I realized: we jumped from severely resource constrained designed straight to completely wasteful designs without adequately exploring the design space in between. To paraphrase Richard Feynman's quote, "There's plenty of room at the bottom": "There's plenty of room in the middle."
philjohn 9y ago
Works both ways, they are inventing some insane light sources to use for EUV Litho - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTARacBxHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTARacBxHI
sipos 9y ago
TBH, I think we just need much more efficient software. This is something we can do, and used to do more. It is insane how inefficient many things we write today are compared to how they could be. I'd love it if efficient code was a reasonable goal again, but at the moment, it just isn't worth the time using more efficient technologies and doing optimisation because it usually isn't really necessary. I've spent time optimizing code where it was really necessary, but it so rarely is that I've only once had the opportunity to spend as much time as I'd like to on this.
- deegles 9y ago
  Do we though? Think about how many engineers the big 5 are hiring... they can't get enough! If we really needed more efficient software, they'd have to hire even more! The focus should be on developer productivity first, then product iteration, then performance.
  - hedora 9y ago
    Yes, but once Moore’s law really stops, the need for product iteration will too, unless you can get functionality gains from increased performance. Once you start caring about performance, you’ll rapidly realize the “productivity” languages slow you down. For example, try to compute CRC32 checksums of 100 byte arrays at bus speed in C/C++ and then in the higher level language of your choice.
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      I bet Pascal, Ada and a few others will achieve similar results.
    - indiv0 9y ago
      Can I use rust as my higher level language of choice? :) In all seriousness though, I wonder if once Moore's law really stops we'll see a surge of innovation in compiler and language paradigms, born out of necessity. It seems to me that the revolution in higher-level languages and paradigms came because we could (computationally) afford it, so it makes sense that once the incentives change we'll see innovation in other areas.

If necessity is the mother of invention, then we'll need a lot better software shortly.

tzahola 9y ago

Bye bye JavaScript

bjoli 9y ago
Let's just hire Mike Pall to make a JavaScript engine.
beedogs 9y ago
And good riddance.
agumonkey 9y ago
Hello Forth.pl
bearjaws 9y ago
Sure Javascript could be more efficient but it's not like everyone developing it is waiting for the 2nm Intel process to fix it...

lvoudour 9y ago

I agree. And barring some groundbreaking invention that completely alters the hardware landscape, I think the trend will be heterogeneous/domain specific ICs. Which means new software development paradigms as well.

qznc 9y ago
Coincidentally,I had my PhD defense yesterday. This trend is the primary motivation for my work. http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/phd http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/phd The research project is http://invasic.de http://invasic.de
- watersb 9y ago
  Congratulations!
- r00fus 9y ago
  Impressive! Is it normal for edu .de pages to be in English?
pjc50 9y ago
These are really hard to sell unless the domain has already taken off widely. This has only really happened to graphics accelerators and to a lesser extent crypto.

setquk 9y ago

I can’t help thinking we should have headed down this path a long time ago. It’s harder to go backwards.

jchb 9y ago
If we are talking about just-in-time, managed vs ahead-of-time, compiled-to-native, parts of the industry have already been changing course in last 5 years - even if not always with full commitment, but more of a "just in case". Java and .NET platforms has been gaining ahead-of-time compilation support from the main vendors. Microsoft has been reviving C++ support. Various new programming languages with static-typing and high performance as a priority are gaining traction.
- setquk 9y ago
  It's not so much the underlying technology but what we have built upon it.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  On Microsoft's case it is even more radical, UWP is basically the initial design for .NET, based on COM as ABI instead of a managed one, hence .NET Native and C++ as main languages. I really like this change of course.
phaedrus 9y ago
Recently I've been working with some legacy Win32 C/C++ code and had the thought, why don't I take all of these hard-coded #defines and Win32 message numbers, window-class names, etc. and put these magic numbers in an Sqlite database instead? Of course I'd be loading a lot of data from disk into RAM that would have simply been encoded as immediate values in the executable before. But my rough estimate still puts this at (at least) an order of magnitude less RAM than abstraction layers like WPF use. And that's when I realized: we jumped from severely resource constrained designed straight to completely wasteful designs without adequately exploring the design space in between. To paraphrase Richard Feynman's quote, "There's plenty of room at the bottom": "There's plenty of room in the middle."

philjohn 9y ago

Works both ways, they are inventing some insane light sources to use for EUV Litho - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTARacBxHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTARacBxHI

sipos 9y ago

TBH, I think we just need much more efficient software. This is something we can do, and used to do more. It is insane how inefficient many things we write today are compared to how they could be. I'd love it if efficient code was a reasonable goal again, but at the moment, it just isn't worth the time using more efficient technologies and doing optimisation because it usually isn't really necessary. I've spent time optimizing code where it was really necessary, but it so rarely is that I've only once had the opportunity to spend as much time as I'd like to on this.

deegles 9y ago
Do we though? Think about how many engineers the big 5 are hiring... they can't get enough! If we really needed more efficient software, they'd have to hire even more! The focus should be on developer productivity first, then product iteration, then performance.
- hedora 9y ago
  Yes, but once Moore’s law really stops, the need for product iteration will too, unless you can get functionality gains from increased performance. Once you start caring about performance, you’ll rapidly realize the “productivity” languages slow you down. For example, try to compute CRC32 checksums of 100 byte arrays at bus speed in C/C++ and then in the higher level language of your choice.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    I bet Pascal, Ada and a few others will achieve similar results.
  - indiv0 9y ago
    Can I use rust as my higher level language of choice? :) In all seriousness though, I wonder if once Moore's law really stops we'll see a surge of innovation in compiler and language paradigms, born out of necessity. It seems to me that the revolution in higher-level languages and paradigms came because we could (computationally) afford it, so it makes sense that once the incentives change we'll see innovation in other areas.