6 ms·

I think the Pinebook is an awesome piece of kit and if I could justify doing so I would absolutely buy one but from everything I've read it's not really somethi

by DC-3 6y ago

I think the Pinebook is an awesome piece of kit and if I could justify doing so I would absolutely buy one but from everything I've read it's not really something you'd want to do serious work on unless you also have the luxury of a beefy workstation to shell into. I suspect the same applies to the Yoga - perfectly alright for most of the day but just wouldn't have the firepower for big compilation jobs or serious multitasking.

dijit 6y ago
Your original assertion > Unfortunately, though Apple will likely find very great success with their ARM Macs, it does not necessarily follow that the architecture will gain significant ground outside the Apple-sphere. Does not imply heavy workloads, compilation being offloaded to cloud is something already being done though. I suspect that ARM will cannibalise most workloads, since it's shown very strong early competence already in photo and video editing on the iPad Pro, I highly suspect advancements in that direction will come to quallcomm CPU's in future.
- DC-3 6y ago
  My original comment discussed the prospect of ARM becoming the leading architecture for the entire range of machines that at the moment tend to be x86 - that's laptops, desktops, workstations, and servers. For this to happen, ARM needs to be capable of dealing with intensive, CPU-heavy tasks like compilation. As the Torvalds quote in the linked article explains, ARM servers cannot become the norm without ARM desktops becoming the norm and vice-versa.
  - dijit 6y ago
    Sure, but it's not all or nothing. ARM can eat the earth but it will not be a shift in a single year, I was suggesting a likely way forward and that is bottom up, coming from low end laptops to higher end laptops and eventually workstations and servers. Just because it's not for -you- right now because you need local compilation does not mean a JS coder or a normal office worker would be unable to use an ARM based machine. Nothing prohibits ARM from ever being workstation grade, it's just not the focus right now- but you seem to imply that because there's no workstation capable CPU that there never can be one, which I find disingenuous.
    - DC-3 6y ago
      I agree it'll happen in time but my point is that Apple adopting ARM will not necessarily cause an instant chain reaction across the industry. My concern is whether my next laptop (perhaps 4 years away) will be ARM - and I'm not sure that there will a suitable machine on the market (I need Linux support) even if there is a perfectly capable range of MacBooks.
    - CountSessine 6y ago
      I think you’re right, but I also think that he’s right in that there’s a real chicken and egg problem here. Just because it's not for -you- right now because you need local compilation does not mean a JS coder or a normal office worker would be unable to use an ARM based machine. I don’t know what workflow other JS coders have, but mine starts with local development in Node. Does V8 produce code that’s as optimal for ARM as x86_64? That’s a pretty big deal to me, and can in fact be very enabling. The local development experience really needs to be good to build a platform, otherwise development will be halting and piecemeal the way embedded development usually is.
      - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
        > JS coder > never tested on android just as planned
        CountSessine 6y ago
        > JS coder > never tested on android just as planned ??? I’m back-end, not front-end. I think I mentioned Node, right? Why would I test backend code on a phone?
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    Is compilation a problem though? It's an unattended process, so it doesn't matter how long it takes, 1 hour or 2 hours, both equal infinity for all practical purposes. I thought ARM has problems only with FPS games, which are not parallelizable and sensitive to single core performance.

by DC-3 6y ago

dijit 6y ago

Your original assertion > Unfortunately, though Apple will likely find very great success with their ARM Macs, it does not necessarily follow that the architecture will gain significant ground outside the Apple-sphere. Does not imply heavy workloads, compilation being offloaded to cloud is something already being done though. I suspect that ARM will cannibalise most workloads, since it's shown very strong early competence already in photo and video editing on the iPad Pro, I highly suspect advancements in that direction will come to quallcomm CPU's in future.

DC-3 6y ago
My original comment discussed the prospect of ARM becoming the leading architecture for the entire range of machines that at the moment tend to be x86 - that's laptops, desktops, workstations, and servers. For this to happen, ARM needs to be capable of dealing with intensive, CPU-heavy tasks like compilation. As the Torvalds quote in the linked article explains, ARM servers cannot become the norm without ARM desktops becoming the norm and vice-versa.
- dijit 6y ago
  Sure, but it's not all or nothing. ARM can eat the earth but it will not be a shift in a single year, I was suggesting a likely way forward and that is bottom up, coming from low end laptops to higher end laptops and eventually workstations and servers. Just because it's not for -you- right now because you need local compilation does not mean a JS coder or a normal office worker would be unable to use an ARM based machine. Nothing prohibits ARM from ever being workstation grade, it's just not the focus right now- but you seem to imply that because there's no workstation capable CPU that there never can be one, which I find disingenuous.
  - DC-3 6y ago
    I agree it'll happen in time but my point is that Apple adopting ARM will not necessarily cause an instant chain reaction across the industry. My concern is whether my next laptop (perhaps 4 years away) will be ARM - and I'm not sure that there will a suitable machine on the market (I need Linux support) even if there is a perfectly capable range of MacBooks.
  - CountSessine 6y ago
    I think you’re right, but I also think that he’s right in that there’s a real chicken and egg problem here. Just because it's not for -you- right now because you need local compilation does not mean a JS coder or a normal office worker would be unable to use an ARM based machine. I don’t know what workflow other JS coders have, but mine starts with local development in Node. Does V8 produce code that’s as optimal for ARM as x86_64? That’s a pretty big deal to me, and can in fact be very enabling. The local development experience really needs to be good to build a platform, otherwise development will be halting and piecemeal the way embedded development usually is.
    - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
      > JS coder > never tested on android just as planned
      - CountSessine 6y ago
        > JS coder > never tested on android just as planned ??? I’m back-end, not front-end. I think I mentioned Node, right? Why would I test backend code on a phone?
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  Is compilation a problem though? It's an unattended process, so it doesn't matter how long it takes, 1 hour or 2 hours, both equal infinity for all practical purposes. I thought ARM has problems only with FPS games, which are not parallelizable and sensitive to single core performance.