3 ms·
Seriously, so cool. I love watching my fellow nerds debate data types online. On a side note, is there a Bitter Lesson for datatypes, the way there is for algo
by benopal64 3y ago
Seriously, so cool. I love watching my fellow nerds debate data types online.
On a side note, is there a Bitter Lesson for datatypes, the way there is for algorithms?
- WJW 3y agoProbably some variation of "hardware usually influences what the optimal datatype is way more than any theoretical runtime differences". For example, B-trees for databases needing to be adapted to the block size of the underlying hardware device. Another example: As soon as you introduce any form pointer chasing to your datatype, you are often going to struggle against relatively simple array-based options because L1 cache is crazy fast compared to RAM.
- benopal64 3y agoWow, great point! Thanks for the reply; I did not even think of hardware at the time of posting. I will look into form pointer chasing. Any good reads that you would recommend for software devs who are interested in electrical engineering or rather understanding how to build hardware?