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> Spectre is a bug in the processor, not in the software. It's a bug in the processor that causes a bug in the software. It's not a bug in your idealized mathe

> Spectre is a bug in the processor, not in the software. It's a bug in the processor that causes a bug in the software. It's not a bug in your idealized mathematical model, but try telling that to the people who paid you not to leak private keys. I see my job as an engineer to be to create a product that satisfies the user's expectations (which in this case are eminently reasonable). It matters not one bit that I can point the finger to the chipmakers. I'm still selling something that I now learned doesn't do what I said it would. It's still on me to fix it the best I can. If I care about the product quality, that is.

chromoblob 3y ago
The program must not show bugs when run on a hardware with unforeseeable bugs, you call this reasonable?
- cscheid 3y ago
  And yet that's what every good engineer did when Spectre came out. Same with the Pentium fdiv bugs, and same with a host of microcode bugs that come up all the time. Not my business to decide what you think is reasonable. That's just what happens in the world, and what (in my view) good engineers sign up for.
  - chromoblob 3y ago
    The choice is between letting hardware be not finalized and letting that force software to be non-finalizable, and letting software be finalizable and forcing the hardware to be finalized too. I like latter more. Finalized hardware is better by itself as well.
    - ChadNauseam 3y ago
      We would all like bug-free hardware, but we won't get it and our job is to write good software in the environment we were given
      - chromoblob 3y ago
        > we won't get it Why do you think so?
    - cscheid 3y ago
      > The choice What choice? I have to fix bugs today as they come.
- thfuran 3y ago
  If you buy a car and the airbags randomly deploy, would you consider it reasonable for the manufacturer to respond "oh, yeah, that'll happen if you drive it on roads rougher than polished stainless steel. You should only be driving on polished roadways"?
  - chromoblob 3y ago
    If this requirement was known to me before I bought, sure. I think that this is a bad analogy to hardware, though. Polished steel roads are unreasonable to ask for, but bugless processors are reasonable to ask for.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      No, they aren't. You can only buy the buggy processors that exist, not notional bugless ones.
      - chromoblob 3y ago
        As if processors were only sold by alien gods, and processors without bugs were impossible to create.
        thfuran 3y ago
        They may not be impossible to make, but they don't get made. And I guess you think Microsoft has been putting bugs in Windows for the last few decades just for something to do, or was that also the influence of alien gods?

chromoblob 3y ago

The program must not show bugs when run on a hardware with unforeseeable bugs, you call this reasonable?

cscheid 3y ago
And yet that's what every good engineer did when Spectre came out. Same with the Pentium fdiv bugs, and same with a host of microcode bugs that come up all the time. Not my business to decide what you think is reasonable. That's just what happens in the world, and what (in my view) good engineers sign up for.
- chromoblob 3y ago
  The choice is between letting hardware be not finalized and letting that force software to be non-finalizable, and letting software be finalizable and forcing the hardware to be finalized too. I like latter more. Finalized hardware is better by itself as well.
  - ChadNauseam 3y ago
    We would all like bug-free hardware, but we won't get it and our job is to write good software in the environment we were given
    - chromoblob 3y ago
      > we won't get it Why do you think so?
  - cscheid 3y ago
    > The choice What choice? I have to fix bugs today as they come.
thfuran 3y ago
If you buy a car and the airbags randomly deploy, would you consider it reasonable for the manufacturer to respond "oh, yeah, that'll happen if you drive it on roads rougher than polished stainless steel. You should only be driving on polished roadways"?
- chromoblob 3y ago
  If this requirement was known to me before I bought, sure. I think that this is a bad analogy to hardware, though. Polished steel roads are unreasonable to ask for, but bugless processors are reasonable to ask for.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    No, they aren't. You can only buy the buggy processors that exist, not notional bugless ones.
    - chromoblob 3y ago
      As if processors were only sold by alien gods, and processors without bugs were impossible to create.
      - thfuran 3y ago
        They may not be impossible to make, but they don't get made. And I guess you think Microsoft has been putting bugs in Windows for the last few decades just for something to do, or was that also the influence of alien gods?