5 ms·

I wish I knew what his secret is. He can't be a genius of THAT magnitude, that would be a miracle.

kick 7y ago
If you ask most people who have familiarity with x86_64, I'm certain they would use a different term than "genius." Though the first step for you would be to work on projects you're more passionate about, and that are more technically challenging. A billing site (judging by your HN about section) won't challenge you in a way that will make you get better.
- mzarate06 7y ago
  > If you ask most people who have familiarity with x86_64, I'm certain they would use a different term than "genius." What term do you think they'd use, and why?
  - amluto 7y ago
    Mostly backwards compatible hack.
    - zaarn 7y ago
      For a backwards compatible hack it works good enough. And "good enough" usually beats "better".
  - kick 7y ago
    "The reason we're stuck with this shitty fifty year old architecture that's steadily gotten worse through every iteration," "Satan," "Evil Computational War Criminal," a few less nice terms. If you ask a Sun employee: "Enemy #1." Less sarcastically: "slightly above average." x86_64 is a nightmare, and we're a decade behind where we could be because it was what the industry settled for.
    - tux1968 7y ago
      Where could I read more about this analysis? Genuinely interested to understand how x86_64 is such an albatross and more details about what could be accomplished in its absence.
      - kick 7y ago
        Previous HN thread on (some of) the failures of x86 itself (it notes that most of this is not solved with x86_64): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=276418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=276418 There's plenty of criticism of CISC in general, but that gets into flamewar status. A lot of modern abstraction, vulnerabilities and inefficiency can be summed up with "x86_64 sucks to write for, so let's build a new (or recreate an old) abstract machine!" In its quest to maintain fifty years of (near) compatibility with an architecture originally used in a calculator, the industry created a monster. There's a reason Apple (and Sun and MIPS before it) was able to get competitive with Intel's chips despite only getting a silicon team like half a decade ago and using an architecture generally seen as low-performance: they ruthlessly removed cruft, cutting ties with backwards compatibility in the process. Backwards compatibility is a scourge unto innovation and ease of use, as even Intel saw (IA64, for all of its faults, was better than x86_64 in virtually every way). I have a lot more criticism of x86_64, and can get a lot more technical in that criticism, but this comment is already getting a bit on the heavy side.
        sharpneli 7y ago
        IA64 had a glaring fault that trumps all of it’s advantages. It was explicitly a vliw design, so the user had to, or compiler, manually set multiple different kind of ops per single instructions. Modern superscalar OoO is pretty much like that, except there is a piece of hardware internally that does it, almost like a hardware jitter. This freedom both means the magical compiler doesn’t have to exist but also it allows processors to have varying amount of execution units. See that you could actually use one more int alu? Just add it and even older software is able to automatically get the benefit.
        nl 7y ago
- jandrese 7y ago
  But the funny thing is he leaves behind a string of industry defining successes in his wake. You can't argue that he's not tremendously influential and successful in the traditional sense. He's the Kelly Johnson of silicon.
goldcd 7y ago
The total of the investment in a new architecture/chip is significantly higher than one guys salary (although I presume he's compensated very well). Maybe it's just once the corporate gears of a company have aligned to invest in something new/interesting - he's interested and they're paying.
ownagefool 7y ago
There probably isn't a secret so much as he's a guy that likes to deliver and companies let him. I go to company to company consultanting, and the companies almost always have very competent staff they just don't listen to.
- S_A_P 7y ago
  This! I also consult and have been to quite a few companies. Often I find that the most assertive person is who gets the ideas/perspectives pushed through, not necessarily the most competent. Sometimes the confidence comes from experience and usually that leads to ok decision making. Other times not so much.
baybal2 7y ago
Just lots of experience. Normally, people don't hang out in semi as much as in software engineering, and that itself is extremely short. Semiconductor engineering was hurt badly when it tried to borrow work culture from the dotcom world, and treating engineers as disposables. I myself know of other man of equal magnitude in the analog world. He worked in electronics for 24 years, most of it in China. He worked for one of my employer, where he was deservingly fired for failing a potentially multi-million buck project. Apple hired him, literally, next week. I have suspicion he had his hands on Apple's Air Pods. It was tough to work with him, he has a reputation of "Shenzhen's Rob Widlar." Very few companies can make a working environment for him.

kick 7y ago

If you ask most people who have familiarity with x86_64, I'm certain they would use a different term than "genius." Though the first step for you would be to work on projects you're more passionate about, and that are more technically challenging. A billing site (judging by your HN about section) won't challenge you in a way that will make you get better.

mzarate06 7y ago
> If you ask most people who have familiarity with x86_64, I'm certain they would use a different term than "genius." What term do you think they'd use, and why?
- amluto 7y ago
  Mostly backwards compatible hack.
  - zaarn 7y ago
    For a backwards compatible hack it works good enough. And "good enough" usually beats "better".
- kick 7y ago
  "The reason we're stuck with this shitty fifty year old architecture that's steadily gotten worse through every iteration," "Satan," "Evil Computational War Criminal," a few less nice terms. If you ask a Sun employee: "Enemy #1." Less sarcastically: "slightly above average." x86_64 is a nightmare, and we're a decade behind where we could be because it was what the industry settled for.
  - tux1968 7y ago
    Where could I read more about this analysis? Genuinely interested to understand how x86_64 is such an albatross and more details about what could be accomplished in its absence.
    - kick 7y ago
      Previous HN thread on (some of) the failures of x86 itself (it notes that most of this is not solved with x86_64): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=276418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=276418 There's plenty of criticism of CISC in general, but that gets into flamewar status. A lot of modern abstraction, vulnerabilities and inefficiency can be summed up with "x86_64 sucks to write for, so let's build a new (or recreate an old) abstract machine!" In its quest to maintain fifty years of (near) compatibility with an architecture originally used in a calculator, the industry created a monster. There's a reason Apple (and Sun and MIPS before it) was able to get competitive with Intel's chips despite only getting a silicon team like half a decade ago and using an architecture generally seen as low-performance: they ruthlessly removed cruft, cutting ties with backwards compatibility in the process. Backwards compatibility is a scourge unto innovation and ease of use, as even Intel saw (IA64, for all of its faults, was better than x86_64 in virtually every way). I have a lot more criticism of x86_64, and can get a lot more technical in that criticism, but this comment is already getting a bit on the heavy side.
      - sharpneli 7y ago
        IA64 had a glaring fault that trumps all of it’s advantages. It was explicitly a vliw design, so the user had to, or compiler, manually set multiple different kind of ops per single instructions. Modern superscalar OoO is pretty much like that, except there is a piece of hardware internally that does it, almost like a hardware jitter. This freedom both means the magical compiler doesn’t have to exist but also it allows processors to have varying amount of execution units. See that you could actually use one more int alu? Just add it and even older software is able to automatically get the benefit.
      - nl 7y ago
jandrese 7y ago
But the funny thing is he leaves behind a string of industry defining successes in his wake. You can't argue that he's not tremendously influential and successful in the traditional sense. He's the Kelly Johnson of silicon.

goldcd 7y ago

The total of the investment in a new architecture/chip is significantly higher than one guys salary (although I presume he's compensated very well). Maybe it's just once the corporate gears of a company have aligned to invest in something new/interesting - he's interested and they're paying.

ownagefool 7y ago

There probably isn't a secret so much as he's a guy that likes to deliver and companies let him. I go to company to company consultanting, and the companies almost always have very competent staff they just don't listen to.

S_A_P 7y ago
This! I also consult and have been to quite a few companies. Often I find that the most assertive person is who gets the ideas/perspectives pushed through, not necessarily the most competent. Sometimes the confidence comes from experience and usually that leads to ok decision making. Other times not so much.

baybal2 7y ago

Just lots of experience. Normally, people don't hang out in semi as much as in software engineering, and that itself is extremely short. Semiconductor engineering was hurt badly when it tried to borrow work culture from the dotcom world, and treating engineers as disposables. I myself know of other man of equal magnitude in the analog world. He worked in electronics for 24 years, most of it in China. He worked for one of my employer, where he was deservingly fired for failing a potentially multi-million buck project. Apple hired him, literally, next week. I have suspicion he had his hands on Apple's Air Pods. It was tough to work with him, he has a reputation of "Shenzhen's Rob Widlar." Very few companies can make a working environment for him.