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> Reputation is basically meaningless here. If they fix the software, people will figure that out in short order. What matters is not just "the software is wor

by cesarb 3y ago

> Reputation is basically meaningless here. If they fix the software, people will figure that out in short order. What matters is not just "the software is working", but also "the software will keep working" (for both new releases and new hardware). Reputation is meaningful for that.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
That's not usually a problem for software, especially this kind of software. New drivers and libraries for existing hardware are typically bug fixes because otherwise people wouldn't install them instead of using the existing code. The code for new hardware is generally based on the existing code, so if the existing code is good then it's likely to remain that way. Also, if the new hardware isn't any good then you just don't buy it. This is why anyone making long-term investments in hardware-related software is wise to write it in a vendor-agnostic way -- even if the software continues to be good you may have other reasons to want to switch hardware in the next generation.
- nabla9 3y ago
  I don't believe this is true competitive numeric software stack, like AI applications are. 1. Code must be hand optimized, refactored for each architecture while the API stays the same. 2. New APIs, algorithms must be backported and optimized for older hardware. That's insane amount of testing and performance tuning.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    So there are two things you might want here. One is, can I just buy this thing and run the existing somebody else's code on it and it will work and be faster than the previous generation? If it isn't, you just don't buy the new hardware until that changes. The other is, you're going to buy a thousand of them or you're making software for the general public to use and you want to optimize it for each specific generation. But in that case you're redoing the work for each generation regardless and you don't have to be concerned about your current efforts carrying forward because you already know that they won't.

by cesarb 3y ago

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

That's not usually a problem for software, especially this kind of software. New drivers and libraries for existing hardware are typically bug fixes because otherwise people wouldn't install them instead of using the existing code. The code for new hardware is generally based on the existing code, so if the existing code is good then it's likely to remain that way. Also, if the new hardware isn't any good then you just don't buy it. This is why anyone making long-term investments in hardware-related software is wise to write it in a vendor-agnostic way -- even if the software continues to be good you may have other reasons to want to switch hardware in the next generation.

nabla9 3y ago
I don't believe this is true competitive numeric software stack, like AI applications are. 1. Code must be hand optimized, refactored for each architecture while the API stays the same. 2. New APIs, algorithms must be backported and optimized for older hardware. That's insane amount of testing and performance tuning.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  So there are two things you might want here. One is, can I just buy this thing and run the existing somebody else's code on it and it will work and be faster than the previous generation? If it isn't, you just don't buy the new hardware until that changes. The other is, you're going to buy a thousand of them or you're making software for the general public to use and you want to optimize it for each specific generation. But in that case you're redoing the work for each generation regardless and you don't have to be concerned about your current efforts carrying forward because you already know that they won't.