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I highly recommended not assuming that the engineers working for Intel are idiots. If something seems like an “obvious” mistakes by you, then it is highly likel
by deterministic 3y ago
I highly recommended not assuming that the engineers working for Intel are idiots. If something seems like an “obvious” mistakes by you, then it is highly likely that you have zero clue on the constraints that forced the decisions.
- Netch 3y agoWhile the _engineers_ of Intel are definitely not idiots - otherwise they couldn't have been getting enough success - the quasi-engineer layer over it, which makes the real technical decisions, showed a truly summit of folly, multiple times. - Foolhardy snatch 1: iAPX 432. - Degradation in first half of 1990s, concluded with FDIV bug, and marvellous savior "ASCI Red" which paid all OoO development (PPro and following). - Foolhardy snatch 2: RAMBUS + Itanium. Nearly collapse with P4 and miracle #2 with Israel team, Core, and stealing AMD64. I can't imagine that a person adopted EPIC-based Itanium had had a real engineering competence. (Not sure for iAPX 432, this is a complicated issue.) On a lower layes, as ISA details, every Intel move looks like using prediction less than for 1 move forward! Maybe 1/2 move sounds more veracious. Loads of examples. And, this also seems a guy that just remembered he was an "engineer" 30-40 years ago is now a decision maker.