4 ms·

We've just started to clean the mess with browsers, where every browser made a custom custom extensions / API, and now we're entering a situation where every ma

by trzeci 6y ago

We've just started to clean the mess with browsers, where every browser made a custom custom extensions / API, and now we're entering a situation where every major player will create own CPU with special instructions, and that will cascade to compilers and ultimately to developers trying to provide cross platform apps.

8ytecoder 6y ago
That’s how the personal computer revolution started. In fact that’s why high level languages were invented. Competition is good. Intel has stagnated the CPU for over a decade now. In addition we have better and standard instruction sets. Compilers are way more competent as well. If this means faster and more processing power and capabilities we’ll do more than fine.
suyash 6y ago
Won't make much difference in the life of software developers targeting Mac or Windows, unlike browser technology, native app toolkit and languages, api's for these two OS is already unique.
alkonaut 6y ago
It’s coming full circle. The period when one company made a processor, a second made an OS, and a third made a compiler looks like it’s ending. Controlling everything from start to finish like Apple with swift, m1, MacOS can give you a several percent advantage just because of the synergies you can take advantage of.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  > Controlling everything from start to finish like Apple with swift, m1, MacOS can give you a several percent advantage just because of the synergies you can take advantage of. That's definitely true. Nevertheless, while Apple controls the whole chain for the iPhone, iPhones are not the most popular smartphones in the world. Depending on their use case, rational customers will buy not the best/most optimized, but the one that fits their needs at the lowest price.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    Unless one listens to Apple’s marketing, Apple is not necessarily the best and most optimized. In my experience, iPhone’s always feel outdated. They’re often slower, clunkier in their user experience, heavier, and thicker.
- chokeartist 6y ago
  I completely agree with your statement with regard to the advantage but I will actually multiply the value, it isn't a few percentage points, it is an order of magnitude in my opinion. While I am happy to see movement in the chip/hw/sw stack ecosystem, I do have some concern. Will everyone just end up selling their own locked-the-hell-down, err, sorry... :) "Secure Boot"-enabled devices? I see the reasons for these things happening, but I do hope we don't end up inadvertently locking out critical sections of the stack from end users.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  The PC was the outlier, a serendipity created due Compaq's cleverness, that is all.
arvinsim 6y ago
More reasons to use Electron apps. Judging from most of the comments in HN, not something to be happy about.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Moto7451 6y ago
Intel has offered a little bit of that confusion with AXV over time. Ice Lake supports all the modern AVX 512 but not the Knights Mill extensions. Previous chips with 512 support have spotty extension coverage. This year’s desktop chips lack them entirely. AMD has had their own issues with SSE extensions they added during the “Heavy Equipment” era being dropped in Zen. Compiler devs are seemingly awesome at making due with these shifting sands.
- temac 6y ago
  Why would anyone want to support programs for Knights Mill on Ice Lake? The (past) theory of Intel that x86 was valuable in itself made no sense anyway. And there is not a single "AVX512" extension set but a base and quite a number of fine grained extensions, and which are supported per uarch is easy to find. One of Intel strategy is runtime dispatch in library code, and for any general purpose AVX512 you are probably going to do that for now. So you could as well address variants if needed. If AVX512 generalizes, I suspect it will become a more stable instruction set. But Knights Mill is legacy already, and has not been replaced.
sweden 6y ago
It's sad to see how far the HN community has fallen, to the point in which people don't seem to understand how computers work anymore. No, this is not a brand new CPU ISA without custom instructions, it's Arm based. And yes, compatibility will be kept with other Arm based CPUs including Apple Silicon.
- dcgudeman 6y ago
  Did you see the “underwater Stonehenge” article voted to the to the top of the font page the other day? It’s fallen pretty rapidly in recent times. I’m looking for an alternative but have yet to find one. Disappointing.
  - layer8 6y ago
    It often feels to me that it’s the submission titles that get voted up, not the actual content of the linked articles.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  > And yes, compatibility will be kept with other Arm based CPUs including Apple Silicon. Did you forget the three E's? "Embrace, extend, extinguish"? Surely you're not that young?
  - sweden 6y ago
    That's not how licensing Arm technology works.
    - esclerofilo 6y ago
      Now it is how it works for embedded processors[1], I see no reason why that can't "tricle up" to the more powerful ones. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/arm-brings-custom-instructions-to-its-embedded-cpus/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/arm-brings-custom-instruct...
      - 6y ago

by trzeci 6y ago

8ytecoder 6y ago

That’s how the personal computer revolution started. In fact that’s why high level languages were invented. Competition is good. Intel has stagnated the CPU for over a decade now. In addition we have better and standard instruction sets. Compilers are way more competent as well. If this means faster and more processing power and capabilities we’ll do more than fine.

suyash 6y ago

Won't make much difference in the life of software developers targeting Mac or Windows, unlike browser technology, native app toolkit and languages, api's for these two OS is already unique.

alkonaut 6y ago

It’s coming full circle. The period when one company made a processor, a second made an OS, and a third made a compiler looks like it’s ending. Controlling everything from start to finish like Apple with swift, m1, MacOS can give you a several percent advantage just because of the synergies you can take advantage of.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
> Controlling everything from start to finish like Apple with swift, m1, MacOS can give you a several percent advantage just because of the synergies you can take advantage of. That's definitely true. Nevertheless, while Apple controls the whole chain for the iPhone, iPhones are not the most popular smartphones in the world. Depending on their use case, rational customers will buy not the best/most optimized, but the one that fits their needs at the lowest price.
- bmitc 6y ago
  Unless one listens to Apple’s marketing, Apple is not necessarily the best and most optimized. In my experience, iPhone’s always feel outdated. They’re often slower, clunkier in their user experience, heavier, and thicker.
chokeartist 6y ago
I completely agree with your statement with regard to the advantage but I will actually multiply the value, it isn't a few percentage points, it is an order of magnitude in my opinion. While I am happy to see movement in the chip/hw/sw stack ecosystem, I do have some concern. Will everyone just end up selling their own locked-the-hell-down, err, sorry... :) "Secure Boot"-enabled devices? I see the reasons for these things happening, but I do hope we don't end up inadvertently locking out critical sections of the stack from end users.
pjmlp 6y ago
The PC was the outlier, a serendipity created due Compaq's cleverness, that is all.

arvinsim 6y ago

More reasons to use Electron apps. Judging from most of the comments in HN, not something to be happy about.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Moto7451 6y ago

Intel has offered a little bit of that confusion with AXV over time. Ice Lake supports all the modern AVX 512 but not the Knights Mill extensions. Previous chips with 512 support have spotty extension coverage. This year’s desktop chips lack them entirely. AMD has had their own issues with SSE extensions they added during the “Heavy Equipment” era being dropped in Zen. Compiler devs are seemingly awesome at making due with these shifting sands.

temac 6y ago
Why would anyone want to support programs for Knights Mill on Ice Lake? The (past) theory of Intel that x86 was valuable in itself made no sense anyway. And there is not a single "AVX512" extension set but a base and quite a number of fine grained extensions, and which are supported per uarch is easy to find. One of Intel strategy is runtime dispatch in library code, and for any general purpose AVX512 you are probably going to do that for now. So you could as well address variants if needed. If AVX512 generalizes, I suspect it will become a more stable instruction set. But Knights Mill is legacy already, and has not been replaced.

sweden 6y ago

It's sad to see how far the HN community has fallen, to the point in which people don't seem to understand how computers work anymore. No, this is not a brand new CPU ISA without custom instructions, it's Arm based. And yes, compatibility will be kept with other Arm based CPUs including Apple Silicon.

dcgudeman 6y ago
Did you see the “underwater Stonehenge” article voted to the to the top of the font page the other day? It’s fallen pretty rapidly in recent times. I’m looking for an alternative but have yet to find one. Disappointing.
- layer8 6y ago
  It often feels to me that it’s the submission titles that get voted up, not the actual content of the linked articles.
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
> And yes, compatibility will be kept with other Arm based CPUs including Apple Silicon. Did you forget the three E's? "Embrace, extend, extinguish"? Surely you're not that young?
- sweden 6y ago
  That's not how licensing Arm technology works.
  - esclerofilo 6y ago
    Now it is how it works for embedded processors[1], I see no reason why that can't "tricle up" to the more powerful ones. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/arm-brings-custom-instructions-to-its-embedded-cpus/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/arm-brings-custom-instruct...
    - 6y ago