4 ms·

Ayup! Totally like that. And I'm sure they have their own sort of correction-reflex for "My computer has 1TB of memory!" - "Oh, you mean you have 1TB of stora

Ayup! Totally like that. And I'm sure they have their own sort of correction-reflex for "My computer has 1TB of memory!" - "Oh, you mean you have 1TB of storage." - "Same thing." - "No. It's not. eyeroll"

korethr 6y ago
I think I spent more time watching video snippets and reading portions of other articles to give myself a lightning course on weaving jargon, just so I could understand what was being talked about in the OP. And suddenly, why looms look as complex as they do and are able to weave complex patterns makes sense. Why looms were automated makes sense, and I find myself with a new sense of respect for those who learn and master operation of a manual loom. It's not a trivial task. Still haven't been able to figure out what a "differential sett" is. Searching with quotes on google finds a bunch of stuff talking about '"differential sett"lement'. Or stuff about Egypt. Best guess is that it has something to do with using a number of threads per inch that is different from what is set on the reed, or differs across the breadth of the warp.
hansvm 6y ago
Off-topic: one of my favorite dev environments had a half terrabyte of memory, and it was _fantastic_ for prototyping -- we rarely had to be bothered with disk spillover or any of the other time sucks that arise in low-RAM environments.
- p1esk 6y ago
  My workstation has 512GB of RAM. The cost of the memory (~$2.5k) is insignificant compared to the cost of GPUs.
- acha6277 6y ago
  How do you use that much RAM? Do you think most developers can benefit with this much RAM?
  - hansvm 6y ago
    > How do you use that much RAM? Typically you'd be operating on a lot of data of some kind and gain a lot in productivity by being able to keep all of it (ideal case) or large chunks of it (sampling, LRU cache, etc) in memory all at once. Having more RAM also enables some workflow changes. You can aggressively point things like intermediate compilation steps or testing databases to a ramdrive. Any time you're doing anything moderately expensive you can cache the result in RAM to make it cheaper to use next time. When choosing algorithms you can bias heavily toward time in any time-space tradeoffs. > Do you think most developers can benefit with this much RAM? I'd wager they could use more than they have typically ;) But no, 512GB seems excessive to me for most developer use cases with today's software. In my current job I haven't had a single use case for that much, and there have only been a few instances where 128GB would have been much more productive than what I have.
drivers99 6y ago
In a computer engineering class (but nowhere else really), I heard storage can be called "secondary memory"[1] so they're technically correct, without knowing it. [1] as mentioned here for instance https://techterms.com/definition/secondary_memory https://techterms.com/definition/secondary_memory
- aidenn0 6y ago
  I've not seen it that way, but I've seen memory called "primary storage." Historically storage and memory have been used fairly interchangeably, but when talking about a modern PC, "storage" usually implies disk (or disc, or nvme) and "memory" implies specifically the DRAM.
  - azepoi 6y ago
    In french it can also all be called memory. Mémoire vive (lively/quick memory) is for RAM/DRAM etc. Mémoire morte (dead memory) for ROM/eeprom... and Mémoire de masse (mass memory) for storage/disc/tape.
    - aidenn0 6y ago
      Mémoire morte may be my favorite term ever for ROM/PROM. Would a CD-ROM be Mémoire morte or Mémoire de masse?
      - azepoi 6y ago
        Mémoire morte is for PROM onboard chips in practice where you find bios, firmwares these kind of things. Mémoire de masse would include optical discs, storage in general. I'd say CDs are generally thought of as storage and are interchangeable and you need a CD drive/player to read them, not directly.
quickthrower2 6y ago
He he then some smartass says "No it really has 1TB of RAM"

korethr 6y ago

I think I spent more time watching video snippets and reading portions of other articles to give myself a lightning course on weaving jargon, just so I could understand what was being talked about in the OP. And suddenly, why looms look as complex as they do and are able to weave complex patterns makes sense. Why looms were automated makes sense, and I find myself with a new sense of respect for those who learn and master operation of a manual loom. It's not a trivial task. Still haven't been able to figure out what a "differential sett" is. Searching with quotes on google finds a bunch of stuff talking about '"differential sett"lement'. Or stuff about Egypt. Best guess is that it has something to do with using a number of threads per inch that is different from what is set on the reed, or differs across the breadth of the warp.

hansvm 6y ago

Off-topic: one of my favorite dev environments had a half terrabyte of memory, and it was _fantastic_ for prototyping -- we rarely had to be bothered with disk spillover or any of the other time sucks that arise in low-RAM environments.

p1esk 6y ago
My workstation has 512GB of RAM. The cost of the memory (~$2.5k) is insignificant compared to the cost of GPUs.
acha6277 6y ago
How do you use that much RAM? Do you think most developers can benefit with this much RAM?
- hansvm 6y ago
  > How do you use that much RAM? Typically you'd be operating on a lot of data of some kind and gain a lot in productivity by being able to keep all of it (ideal case) or large chunks of it (sampling, LRU cache, etc) in memory all at once. Having more RAM also enables some workflow changes. You can aggressively point things like intermediate compilation steps or testing databases to a ramdrive. Any time you're doing anything moderately expensive you can cache the result in RAM to make it cheaper to use next time. When choosing algorithms you can bias heavily toward time in any time-space tradeoffs. > Do you think most developers can benefit with this much RAM? I'd wager they could use more than they have typically ;) But no, 512GB seems excessive to me for most developer use cases with today's software. In my current job I haven't had a single use case for that much, and there have only been a few instances where 128GB would have been much more productive than what I have.

drivers99 6y ago

In a computer engineering class (but nowhere else really), I heard storage can be called "secondary memory"[1] so they're technically correct, without knowing it. [1] as mentioned here for instance https://techterms.com/definition/secondary_memory https://techterms.com/definition/secondary_memory

aidenn0 6y ago
I've not seen it that way, but I've seen memory called "primary storage." Historically storage and memory have been used fairly interchangeably, but when talking about a modern PC, "storage" usually implies disk (or disc, or nvme) and "memory" implies specifically the DRAM.
- azepoi 6y ago
  In french it can also all be called memory. Mémoire vive (lively/quick memory) is for RAM/DRAM etc. Mémoire morte (dead memory) for ROM/eeprom... and Mémoire de masse (mass memory) for storage/disc/tape.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    Mémoire morte may be my favorite term ever for ROM/PROM. Would a CD-ROM be Mémoire morte or Mémoire de masse?
    - azepoi 6y ago
      Mémoire morte is for PROM onboard chips in practice where you find bios, firmwares these kind of things. Mémoire de masse would include optical discs, storage in general. I'd say CDs are generally thought of as storage and are interchangeable and you need a CD drive/player to read them, not directly.

quickthrower2 6y ago

He he then some smartass says "No it really has 1TB of RAM"