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I think most programming languages and associated tools will start supporting ARM64 as a first class citizen. The current lack of support isn't due to apathy, j

I think most programming languages and associated tools will start supporting ARM64 as a first class citizen. The current lack of support isn't due to apathy, just constraints around ARM64 not being popular for desktop development. For example, it's difficult to support a platform that isn't well supported by your CI/CD provider. Linus Torvalds previously said that ARM on the server would never be a thing since developers didn't run ARM on their personal machines. Since this assumption is no longer true, the ecosystem of tools will now support ARM better and we'll see ARM on the server become a major thing in a few year's time.

EduardoRFS 6y ago
I don't think that was the case for a long time on the tooling side, OCaml has a great support for ARM64 for a long time now, but Linux ARM64. But well most developers aren't actually using Linux. But a thing that is going to change is supporting iOS, one of the reasons that this PR was approved(and it adds support to iOS) it's mostly because there is a Mac ARM64
- asveikau 6y ago
  I don't know much about ocaml specifically, but speaking in the abstract, probably one of the best reasons I can think of for a compiler to target arm64 Linux is to target android phones.
  - EduardoRFS 6y ago
    Android isn't even on the official list of OS supported, recently I fixed the build system for Android, OCaml is just not a mobile language(yet)
- enedil 6y ago
  Most OCaml developers might be actually using Linux though.
- nix23 6y ago
  >But well most developers aren't actually using Linux. What??
  - the_af 6y ago
    I'm guessing he might have meant OCaml devs? Most development shops I've worked in used Linux servers to host their solution, and mostly Linux/Unix based tools and dev environments (people who preferred Windows as their desktop usually ssh'd to Linux boxes to work).
    - non-entity 6y ago
      I wouldn't think so, from what I've read OCaml has pretty poor windows support.
    - EduardoRFS 6y ago
      Most developers, there is a lot of places to get this information but if you look at the stackoverflow survey, which is a survey large enough to be relevant, you get some data around 25% of developers using Linux. We're talking about as their computer, not servers tho, everyone uses Linux for server
      - the_af 6y ago
        Thanks for the answer! I have a followup question: if the server is Linux, that means the app itself (or the "solution") is Linux based, which means that an OCaml solution would have to compile (or cross-compile to) and run on Linux, which means that ARM64 on Linux is relevant :) Unless of course most OCaml devs don't target Linux.
        yawaramin 6y ago
        Sure it's relevant, but again like Eduardo said, most devs don't have Linux ARM64 dev machines, they don't use it on a daily basis, they don't have experience with it.
      - 6y ago
- slezyr 6y ago
  > But well most developers aren't actually using Linux. Then it would be Windows and not Mac OS. Is Mac OS any popular outside USA?
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    It's certainly popular in the UK. Especially for developers and students. Of course if you're doing mobile (iOS) dev you're pretty much forced to use macs.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    I'm not really sure you can call macs "popular" even here in the US.... they're a professional luxury for the most part. I say this with three macs within reach of me.
    - unreal6 6y ago
      They seem exceedingly popular in academia, it seems that most university students and professors posses them, even in computer science departments.
    - freehunter 6y ago
      The subject of the conversation is developers, who are almost by definition luxurious professionals.
      - josephg 6y ago
        It really depends on the programming culture. Game developers and many enterprise software developers almost universally develop on windows. I’ve had conversations with some people from those areas who have been shocked at the idea software developers use macs - they personally don’t know anyone who does. But web development shops (especially node/react/etc), consulting, and SV startups seem to pretty consistently use macs. It’s hard to intuitively tell how popular any of this stuff is in absolute terms because we’re all individually trapped in filter bubbles based on the kind of programmers we interact with.
nicoburns 6y ago
> The current lack of support I'm not sure that's even true from a tooling perspective. It's true that desktop applications often don't support ARM64, but toolchains usually do because both Android and iOS are primarily ARM64 and are hugely popular platforms.
heavyset_go 6y ago
As someone who jumped on the ARM train early, and someone who doesn't want to contribute to creating more electronic waste than necessary, it's disheartening to see 32-bit ARM being increasingly ignored as a platform compared to ARM64.
- wczekalski 6y ago
  ARM 32 bit is supported by OCaml. Just not for iOS/MacOS since the 32 bit iOS devices are ancient by now.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    > 32 bit iOS devices are ancient by now The last iPhone with a 32-bit processor appears to be the iPhone 5c, last produced in 2015. As I type this on a laptop from 2015, I have to question your definition of "ancient".
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      iPhone 5c uses technology from 2012; it was already terrible to use as it approached its end-of-life in 2017. Old phones just don’t really have the lifespan that computers do. (In contrast, my iPhone SE–which is using 5-year-old technology as well–is still an excellent phone.)
      - josephg 6y ago
        I think that’s increasingly not the case. I’m writing this message on an iPhone 6s which honestly still feels great. I had the battery replaced a couple years ago but aside from that I haven’t had any problems with it - all the apps I run on it feel smooth and responsive. (And in some cases better than my desktop since they aren’t running through electron.) If not for the camera and iOS support inevitably ending, I don’t see much reason to upgrade.
        nicoburns 6y ago
mattgreenrocks 6y ago
There's confirmation bias at work here, but I've definitely noticed a slight uptick on ARM-related work to various dev tools (think LLVM and whatnot) in 2019-2020 leading up to the announcement. That and $5 gets you a decent cup of coffee, but hey. OCaml is known for having a small-ish implementation with good performance IIRC (not sure where multicore is these days). Will have to take a look at this.
- superherointj 6y ago
  OCaml has multicore now and seems to be doing well. Latest report: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-june-2020/6047/1 https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-june-2020/6047/1
blargmaster33 6y ago
Since Linus cucked to the SJW everything he say is suspect.
babaganooj 6y ago
I have this vague idea, which can be completely false, that porting software that runs on ARM64 Linux (which is what cloud servers use) to Mac ARM64 (which I think is BSD derived?) is not trivial. Or is it?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Depends on the kind of software. POSIX compatible C requires few, if any, source changes. Code that makes direct syscalls will need more work.
  - DCKing 6y ago
    It's worth pointing out that MacPorts still has a lot of modern tools and utilities working for PowerPC Macs. This is despite PowerPC Macs being 'officially' stuck on GCC 4.2 (unless you install newer... through MacPorts), ancient Mac OS X frameworks and barely any developers have a PowerPC machine at hand (because why would they).
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      MacPorts also mostly supports Apple silicon. It's pretty cool!
- lmm 6y ago
  In the general case it's not necessarily trivial, just like porting software from x86 linux to x86 mac is not necessarily trivial. For example your software might rely on some system interface that's done differently on those platforms, e.g. if you're using kprobes then it would take an effort to port that to use dtrace. And if we're talking about a GUI application then the framework it uses might not be first-class on mac, e.g. GTK only works in an X11-based way. But there are cases where it's as simple as pushing the compile button and getting out something working.
monadic2 6y ago
Hah, and arm servers were already gaining an economic edge before Apple’s consumer product switch.

EduardoRFS 6y ago

I don't think that was the case for a long time on the tooling side, OCaml has a great support for ARM64 for a long time now, but Linux ARM64. But well most developers aren't actually using Linux. But a thing that is going to change is supporting iOS, one of the reasons that this PR was approved(and it adds support to iOS) it's mostly because there is a Mac ARM64

asveikau 6y ago
I don't know much about ocaml specifically, but speaking in the abstract, probably one of the best reasons I can think of for a compiler to target arm64 Linux is to target android phones.
- EduardoRFS 6y ago
  Android isn't even on the official list of OS supported, recently I fixed the build system for Android, OCaml is just not a mobile language(yet)
enedil 6y ago
Most OCaml developers might be actually using Linux though.
nix23 6y ago
>But well most developers aren't actually using Linux. What??
- the_af 6y ago
  I'm guessing he might have meant OCaml devs? Most development shops I've worked in used Linux servers to host their solution, and mostly Linux/Unix based tools and dev environments (people who preferred Windows as their desktop usually ssh'd to Linux boxes to work).
  - non-entity 6y ago
    I wouldn't think so, from what I've read OCaml has pretty poor windows support.
  - EduardoRFS 6y ago
    Most developers, there is a lot of places to get this information but if you look at the stackoverflow survey, which is a survey large enough to be relevant, you get some data around 25% of developers using Linux. We're talking about as their computer, not servers tho, everyone uses Linux for server
    - the_af 6y ago
      Thanks for the answer! I have a followup question: if the server is Linux, that means the app itself (or the "solution") is Linux based, which means that an OCaml solution would have to compile (or cross-compile to) and run on Linux, which means that ARM64 on Linux is relevant :) Unless of course most OCaml devs don't target Linux.
      - yawaramin 6y ago
        Sure it's relevant, but again like Eduardo said, most devs don't have Linux ARM64 dev machines, they don't use it on a daily basis, they don't have experience with it.
    - 6y ago
slezyr 6y ago
> But well most developers aren't actually using Linux. Then it would be Windows and not Mac OS. Is Mac OS any popular outside USA?
- nicoburns 6y ago
  It's certainly popular in the UK. Especially for developers and students. Of course if you're doing mobile (iOS) dev you're pretty much forced to use macs.
- monadic2 6y ago
  I'm not really sure you can call macs "popular" even here in the US.... they're a professional luxury for the most part. I say this with three macs within reach of me.
  - unreal6 6y ago
    They seem exceedingly popular in academia, it seems that most university students and professors posses them, even in computer science departments.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    The subject of the conversation is developers, who are almost by definition luxurious professionals.
    - josephg 6y ago
      It really depends on the programming culture. Game developers and many enterprise software developers almost universally develop on windows. I’ve had conversations with some people from those areas who have been shocked at the idea software developers use macs - they personally don’t know anyone who does. But web development shops (especially node/react/etc), consulting, and SV startups seem to pretty consistently use macs. It’s hard to intuitively tell how popular any of this stuff is in absolute terms because we’re all individually trapped in filter bubbles based on the kind of programmers we interact with.

nicoburns 6y ago

> The current lack of support I'm not sure that's even true from a tooling perspective. It's true that desktop applications often don't support ARM64, but toolchains usually do because both Android and iOS are primarily ARM64 and are hugely popular platforms.

heavyset_go 6y ago

As someone who jumped on the ARM train early, and someone who doesn't want to contribute to creating more electronic waste than necessary, it's disheartening to see 32-bit ARM being increasingly ignored as a platform compared to ARM64.

wczekalski 6y ago
ARM 32 bit is supported by OCaml. Just not for iOS/MacOS since the 32 bit iOS devices are ancient by now.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > 32 bit iOS devices are ancient by now The last iPhone with a 32-bit processor appears to be the iPhone 5c, last produced in 2015. As I type this on a laptop from 2015, I have to question your definition of "ancient".
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    iPhone 5c uses technology from 2012; it was already terrible to use as it approached its end-of-life in 2017. Old phones just don’t really have the lifespan that computers do. (In contrast, my iPhone SE–which is using 5-year-old technology as well–is still an excellent phone.)
    - josephg 6y ago
      I think that’s increasingly not the case. I’m writing this message on an iPhone 6s which honestly still feels great. I had the battery replaced a couple years ago but aside from that I haven’t had any problems with it - all the apps I run on it feel smooth and responsive. (And in some cases better than my desktop since they aren’t running through electron.) If not for the camera and iOS support inevitably ending, I don’t see much reason to upgrade.
      - nicoburns 6y ago

mattgreenrocks 6y ago

There's confirmation bias at work here, but I've definitely noticed a slight uptick on ARM-related work to various dev tools (think LLVM and whatnot) in 2019-2020 leading up to the announcement. That and $5 gets you a decent cup of coffee, but hey. OCaml is known for having a small-ish implementation with good performance IIRC (not sure where multicore is these days). Will have to take a look at this.

superherointj 6y ago
OCaml has multicore now and seems to be doing well. Latest report: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-june-2020/6047/1 https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-june-2020/6047/1

blargmaster33 6y ago

Since Linus cucked to the SJW everything he say is suspect.

babaganooj 6y ago

I have this vague idea, which can be completely false, that porting software that runs on ARM64 Linux (which is what cloud servers use) to Mac ARM64 (which I think is BSD derived?) is not trivial. Or is it?

saagarjha 6y ago
Depends on the kind of software. POSIX compatible C requires few, if any, source changes. Code that makes direct syscalls will need more work.
- DCKing 6y ago
  It's worth pointing out that MacPorts still has a lot of modern tools and utilities working for PowerPC Macs. This is despite PowerPC Macs being 'officially' stuck on GCC 4.2 (unless you install newer... through MacPorts), ancient Mac OS X frameworks and barely any developers have a PowerPC machine at hand (because why would they).
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    MacPorts also mostly supports Apple silicon. It's pretty cool!
lmm 6y ago
In the general case it's not necessarily trivial, just like porting software from x86 linux to x86 mac is not necessarily trivial. For example your software might rely on some system interface that's done differently on those platforms, e.g. if you're using kprobes then it would take an effort to port that to use dtrace. And if we're talking about a GUI application then the framework it uses might not be first-class on mac, e.g. GTK only works in an X11-based way. But there are cases where it's as simple as pushing the compile button and getting out something working.

monadic2 6y ago

Hah, and arm servers were already gaining an economic edge before Apple’s consumer product switch.