3 ms·
This brings to mind Knuth's Art of Computer Programming which included algorithms that were optimized for processing data on a physical tape, where (unlike rand
by PeterisP 6y ago
This brings to mind Knuth's Art of Computer Programming which included algorithms that were optimized for processing data on a physical tape, where (unlike random access memory) the physical ordering and seeking distance and other factors are even more meaningful than for hard drives.
- bombcar 6y agoI've heard stories about rewriting computer programs from the era of drum memory to make sure everything synced up with the drum speed - having the next instruction under the read head meant a LOT when otherwise you'd have to wait for a full drum rotation. What's interesting is the improvements made for a specific hardware situation can often end up slowing it down when the assumptions no longer apply (the most obvious example of this is the assumption about access times vs seek times applied to RAM vs spinning disk vs SSD vs NVME, etc). If you're writing code "for the long term" and have optimization routines, it's good to have an option to disable them; perhaps in the future disk will be as fast as RAM (or someone's using a RAMDISK) and disabling optimizations for HDD will help.
- sliken 6y agoNot sure how common that was, but it did gain some amount of fame in "The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer", which is easily to find.