6 ms·

GNU Binutlis 2.37 has been released

85 points by edelsohn 5y ago

MrUssek 5y ago
Typo: Binutlis => Binutils
- qbasic_forever 5y ago
  Amazing how brains work, I still had to read your correction about 5 times before I realized what was wrong.
  - yissp 5y ago
    Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
    - mikevm 5y ago
      Hloy siht.
    - hyperpape 5y ago
      This is a nice daeimorsttn of a real peehmnoon, but the eaailoptxn geivn (that olny the first and last leerttrs maettr) is iccenorrt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typoglycemia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typoglycemia
      - yesenadam 5y ago
        This article gives many reasons why the text of the "Cmabrigde Uinervtisy" meme is deceptively easy to read, and assesses its claims: http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ It also includes a link to a handy text jumbler written in AWK: http://www.stevesachs.com/jumbler.cgi http://www.stevesachs.com/jumbler.cgi
    - jamespwilliams 5y ago
      iprmoatnt*
      - jcranmer 5y ago
        rscheearch is also misspelled.
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      Aaclltuy, taht is not ture. It smees lkie it oghut to be, but taht is in lagre prat due to olny vrey sghilt mginnug dnoe to the txet. If you try haderr, and alppy a mroe aeggirssve taafimnoorrstn to the txet, you wlil fnid taht it is no legnor esay to raed the txet. Eaceillpsy ntoe how the legnor wdors in tihs salmpe are far haderr to raed tahn tsohe taht are sehortr; it is the oceeimnnprse of the salml, facinnotul wdors taht ldens ielstf to esay iaeeinoprrtttn, and legnor wdors (mroe haeilvy maeglnd) bcemoe ecdeegilnxy dcffiilut caeeghllns to pluzze out waht tehy wree oagiillnry ideenntd to reeenprst. (I didn't opt to randomly choose the middle letters, but instead sorted them, using reverse alphabetical order when the word came out the same. This makes some words insanely difficult--functional and interpretation are impossible to pick out so mangled, and I wrote the entire paragraph before pasting it). If you thought that was too hard to read, here's the original: Actually, that is not true. It seems like it ought to be, but that is in large part due to only very slight munging done to the text. If you try harder, and apply a more aggressive transformation to the text, you will find that it is no longer easy to read the text. Especially note how the longer words in this sample are far harder to read than those that are shorter; it is the omnipresence of the small, functional words that lends itself to easy interpretation, and longer words (more heavily mangled) become exceedingly difficult challenges to puzzle out what they were originally intended to represent.
      - User23 5y ago
        FWIW I still found the heavily mangled version fairly easy to read, maybe a 20-30% slowdown max and it got easier as I went. I speedread though so maybe it's because I'm already used to not actually focusing on letters and taking in the gestalt instead. It's kind of like how it's easy to tell the equality of two sets written in different orders up to about size 4, and past that it gets tricky. This is why the classic tick mark system uses 4 ticks and then a slash for the fifth too.
  - sgt 5y ago
    Interesting. I read it as "bin" + "utlis" and wondered for a second if this was some rewrite in Rust or something.
rightbyte 5y ago
It is kinda refreshing to read a release note. Have those gone out of fashion?
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  "Bug fixes and improvements"
  - proactivesvcs 5y ago
    "Details not supplied by developer" -- Occasionally seen on some of Google apps on Android.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      They are so ashamed of what they do that they better give no details.
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    Seen in a changelog: "Fixes: Little here, little there, little everywhere"
- viraptor 5y ago
  Not really. Many long-term / bigger projects have those. Maybe they're not common in your day to day environment?
nh2 5y ago
This release also fixes a 300x speed regression in `strip`: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28058 https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28058 Many Linux distributions use strip as part of their package builds, so it can have a large impact in some cases.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
choeger 5y ago
These tools are so important, yet I would bet that less than 1% of developers can actually use them and even less would have an idea on how to reimplement or improve them. Sometimes I feel like we are standing on a house of cards about to collapse.
- sharikone 5y ago
  Fortunately there are plenty of developers that can reimplement or improve them. If there were a big economic incentive to do so you would see everything rewritten from scratch, redesigned, optimized and polished in two months
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  Anyone who knows how to use them, their house will still be standing. Thinking about this could cause one to question what "developers", as used today, actually means. Developers of what. A house of cards.
- imglorp 5y ago
  Fortunately, by law of large numbers, if there are about 2.5e7 developers globally, that means there might be 2.5e5 who fit that bill.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  The house of cards analogy doesn't work much in real life because most things in life aren't that simple and fragile. It's of course possible to find single points of failure in complex systems, but we tend to identify them and work around them before they become a big problem. In this situation, there are plenty of C programmers out there, so most developers don't need to know anything about these tools.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  I get that it’s kind of hip right now to talk about how developers these days are less capable than the mythical prior age where magical rings were forged and the elves still flourished in middle earth. Can you back up your 1%-or-less estimate with anything at all? Binutils is certainly a solid baseline set of tools, but given how frequently $insert_core_tool_but_in_rust/golang/etc shows up on HN, the risk that we forget how to rub sticks together to make fire seems low.
dale_glass 5y ago
I see a reference to GOLD in the previous message. Does anybody know how that project is doing? I recall that it was a promising and higher performance for LD, but I heard that it had stagnated, and Fedora stopped using it. Is it getting any better? A better performing linker may be a nice benefit for large C++ projects.
- tux3 5y ago
  You may be interested in mold (by the author of LLVM's lld). It's a very comfortable order of magnitude faster than gold, and starting to become pretty stable. https://github.com/rui314/mold https://github.com/rui314/mold
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    Ah yes, I think I heard about that one at some point, but then forgot. Sounds promising, thanks for the reminder!

85 points by edelsohn 5y ago

MrUssek 5y ago

Typo: Binutlis => Binutils

qbasic_forever 5y ago
Amazing how brains work, I still had to read your correction about 5 times before I realized what was wrong.
- yissp 5y ago
  Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
  - mikevm 5y ago
    Hloy siht.
  - hyperpape 5y ago
    This is a nice daeimorsttn of a real peehmnoon, but the eaailoptxn geivn (that olny the first and last leerttrs maettr) is iccenorrt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typoglycemia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typoglycemia
    - yesenadam 5y ago
      This article gives many reasons why the text of the "Cmabrigde Uinervtisy" meme is deceptively easy to read, and assesses its claims: http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/ It also includes a link to a handy text jumbler written in AWK: http://www.stevesachs.com/jumbler.cgi http://www.stevesachs.com/jumbler.cgi
  - jamespwilliams 5y ago
    iprmoatnt*
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      rscheearch is also misspelled.
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    Aaclltuy, taht is not ture. It smees lkie it oghut to be, but taht is in lagre prat due to olny vrey sghilt mginnug dnoe to the txet. If you try haderr, and alppy a mroe aeggirssve taafimnoorrstn to the txet, you wlil fnid taht it is no legnor esay to raed the txet. Eaceillpsy ntoe how the legnor wdors in tihs salmpe are far haderr to raed tahn tsohe taht are sehortr; it is the oceeimnnprse of the salml, facinnotul wdors taht ldens ielstf to esay iaeeinoprrtttn, and legnor wdors (mroe haeilvy maeglnd) bcemoe ecdeegilnxy dcffiilut caeeghllns to pluzze out waht tehy wree oagiillnry ideenntd to reeenprst. (I didn't opt to randomly choose the middle letters, but instead sorted them, using reverse alphabetical order when the word came out the same. This makes some words insanely difficult--functional and interpretation are impossible to pick out so mangled, and I wrote the entire paragraph before pasting it). If you thought that was too hard to read, here's the original: Actually, that is not true. It seems like it ought to be, but that is in large part due to only very slight munging done to the text. If you try harder, and apply a more aggressive transformation to the text, you will find that it is no longer easy to read the text. Especially note how the longer words in this sample are far harder to read than those that are shorter; it is the omnipresence of the small, functional words that lends itself to easy interpretation, and longer words (more heavily mangled) become exceedingly difficult challenges to puzzle out what they were originally intended to represent.
    - User23 5y ago
      FWIW I still found the heavily mangled version fairly easy to read, maybe a 20-30% slowdown max and it got easier as I went. I speedread though so maybe it's because I'm already used to not actually focusing on letters and taking in the gestalt instead. It's kind of like how it's easy to tell the equality of two sets written in different orders up to about size 4, and past that it gets tricky. This is why the classic tick mark system uses 4 ticks and then a slash for the fifth too.
- sgt 5y ago
  Interesting. I read it as "bin" + "utlis" and wondered for a second if this was some rewrite in Rust or something.

rightbyte 5y ago

It is kinda refreshing to read a release note. Have those gone out of fashion?

johannes1234321 5y ago
"Bug fixes and improvements"
- proactivesvcs 5y ago
  "Details not supplied by developer" -- Occasionally seen on some of Google apps on Android.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    They are so ashamed of what they do that they better give no details.
- dale_glass 5y ago
  Seen in a changelog: "Fixes: Little here, little there, little everywhere"
viraptor 5y ago
Not really. Many long-term / bigger projects have those. Maybe they're not common in your day to day environment?

nh2 5y ago

This release also fixes a 300x speed regression in `strip`: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28058 https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=28058 Many Linux distributions use strip as part of their package builds, so it can have a large impact in some cases.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

choeger 5y ago

These tools are so important, yet I would bet that less than 1% of developers can actually use them and even less would have an idea on how to reimplement or improve them. Sometimes I feel like we are standing on a house of cards about to collapse.

sharikone 5y ago
Fortunately there are plenty of developers that can reimplement or improve them. If there were a big economic incentive to do so you would see everything rewritten from scratch, redesigned, optimized and polished in two months
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Anyone who knows how to use them, their house will still be standing. Thinking about this could cause one to question what "developers", as used today, actually means. Developers of what. A house of cards.
imglorp 5y ago
Fortunately, by law of large numbers, if there are about 2.5e7 developers globally, that means there might be 2.5e5 who fit that bill.
throwaway984393 5y ago
The house of cards analogy doesn't work much in real life because most things in life aren't that simple and fragile. It's of course possible to find single points of failure in complex systems, but we tend to identify them and work around them before they become a big problem. In this situation, there are plenty of C programmers out there, so most developers don't need to know anything about these tools.
akerl_ 5y ago
I get that it’s kind of hip right now to talk about how developers these days are less capable than the mythical prior age where magical rings were forged and the elves still flourished in middle earth. Can you back up your 1%-or-less estimate with anything at all? Binutils is certainly a solid baseline set of tools, but given how frequently $insert_core_tool_but_in_rust/golang/etc shows up on HN, the risk that we forget how to rub sticks together to make fire seems low.

dale_glass 5y ago

I see a reference to GOLD in the previous message. Does anybody know how that project is doing? I recall that it was a promising and higher performance for LD, but I heard that it had stagnated, and Fedora stopped using it. Is it getting any better? A better performing linker may be a nice benefit for large C++ projects.

tux3 5y ago
You may be interested in mold (by the author of LLVM's lld). It's a very comfortable order of magnitude faster than gold, and starting to become pretty stable. https://github.com/rui314/mold https://github.com/rui314/mold
- dale_glass 5y ago
  Ah yes, I think I heard about that one at some point, but then forgot. Sounds promising, thanks for the reminder!