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I don't see why it would be hard. Iterating on a architecture is harder than starting one from scratch. If the software market moves to ARM and there's bigger

by boudin 6y ago

I don't see why it would be hard. Iterating on a architecture is harder than starting one from scratch. If the software market moves to ARM and there's bigger opportunities on the laptop/desktop side, it will attract other players in the high performance market. Until now there was very little incentive due to the lack of software on mainstream operating systems (microsoft learnt this the hard way). Linux market on laptop an desktop has been way too small to attract big investments in the area. After x86 is not dead, AMD is competing pretty well with their Zen architecture. It will be interesting to see what the next iteration will bring in term of power consumption and performance. I also wonder if being an SOC with integrated memory helps the M1 in term of performance (I guess it must improve data access latency). It might push competitors to build high performance SOC.

spijdar 6y ago
> "Iterating on a architecture is harder than starting one from scratch." Any reason to believe this is generally true? This seems like the same fallacy that leads to people believing that scrapping all the code and starting from scratch will make a project better, and typically seems to end in more-bugs and fewer-features with delays in release. It can be true when the old code/design is just incredibly bad and needs to be tossed, but I don't think it's true in general.
- wmil 6y ago
  It's true if you read it as "breaking backwards compatibility is easier". Intel x86 chips would have had things like out of order execution many years earlier if they didn't need to be compatible with old software. Some people have said that a lot of the 737 Max problems are due to Boeing execs insisting on keeping the same airframe. I admit that isn't quite what the parent said, but realistically any architecture "from scratch" is going to reuse a lot of stuff from existing designs that works well.
- slx26 6y ago
  When the iterations on a given project or architecture start hitting diminishing returns, trying new things from scratch is often a good strategy. I assume the commenter meant the quote for this context, but failed to make it explicit.
- socialdemocrat 6y ago
  Scrapping the code and starting from scratch is often better than iteration. There are some famous examples out there which try to give the impression that this is a terrible idea but often one just gets half the story. The devil is in the details. It is a question of execution and need. Who is doing it etc. It is easier for a team that made the original system to make a better rewrite because they understand past mistakes better. And entirely new team may simply replicate mistakes of the past.

by boudin 6y ago

spijdar 6y ago

> "Iterating on a architecture is harder than starting one from scratch." Any reason to believe this is generally true? This seems like the same fallacy that leads to people believing that scrapping all the code and starting from scratch will make a project better, and typically seems to end in more-bugs and fewer-features with delays in release. It can be true when the old code/design is just incredibly bad and needs to be tossed, but I don't think it's true in general.

wmil 6y ago
It's true if you read it as "breaking backwards compatibility is easier". Intel x86 chips would have had things like out of order execution many years earlier if they didn't need to be compatible with old software. Some people have said that a lot of the 737 Max problems are due to Boeing execs insisting on keeping the same airframe. I admit that isn't quite what the parent said, but realistically any architecture "from scratch" is going to reuse a lot of stuff from existing designs that works well.
slx26 6y ago
When the iterations on a given project or architecture start hitting diminishing returns, trying new things from scratch is often a good strategy. I assume the commenter meant the quote for this context, but failed to make it explicit.
socialdemocrat 6y ago
Scrapping the code and starting from scratch is often better than iteration. There are some famous examples out there which try to give the impression that this is a terrible idea but often one just gets half the story. The devil is in the details. It is a question of execution and need. Who is doing it etc. It is easier for a team that made the original system to make a better rewrite because they understand past mistakes better. And entirely new team may simply replicate mistakes of the past.