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If bread had changed as much as GPUs have in the past seven years, your toaster would be obsolete, too. This isn't about good engineering vs bad, this is about

If bread had changed as much as GPUs have in the past seven years, your toaster would be obsolete, too. This isn't about good engineering vs bad, this is about mature technology vs a rapidly developing field. Different characteristics beget different engineering trade offs.

gaius 14y ago
Cars are switching from petrol to hybrid to electric motors, but roads still work... "Rapidly developing" is a red herring.
- tinco 14y ago
  Roads still work because they are too expensive to replace. GPU's and bread are not, so your argument does not make sense.
  - gaius 14y ago
    Expensive things are more likely to work? I can tell you've not worked long in this industry, my friend.
    - Symmetry 14y ago
      I think that paraphrase was slightly closer to the opposite of what tinco said than what he did say.
- batista 14y ago
  >Cars are switching from petrol to hybrid to electric motors, but roads still work... Yes, and this is what makes this a bad analogy.
  - geoffpado 14y ago
    He's got the whole analogy inverted. If roads were rapidly changing, we'd need dramatically different cars to handle the new roads.
- Jtsummers 14y ago
  Bad analogy. Car engines and transmissions are the heart of the vehicle, and those change frequently as well. Roads are a fundamental, static, landscape feature today. They're like telephone poles and fiber conduits, neither of which have changed much in recent times. Software APIs change to match the features/needs of the users and developers. Part of this is based on the changing hardware, part on desired features. The hardware today is vastly different than when OpenGL 1.1/1.5 was available so why should we be constrained to use it in the same fashion? In short, APIs shouldn't be static for now and forever, we'd only be limiting ourselves and ignoring the fact that sometimes things change and sometimes early decisions were wrong (or less effective than desired).

gaius 14y ago

Cars are switching from petrol to hybrid to electric motors, but roads still work... "Rapidly developing" is a red herring.

tinco 14y ago
Roads still work because they are too expensive to replace. GPU's and bread are not, so your argument does not make sense.
- gaius 14y ago
  Expensive things are more likely to work? I can tell you've not worked long in this industry, my friend.
  - Symmetry 14y ago
    I think that paraphrase was slightly closer to the opposite of what tinco said than what he did say.
batista 14y ago
>Cars are switching from petrol to hybrid to electric motors, but roads still work... Yes, and this is what makes this a bad analogy.
- geoffpado 14y ago
  He's got the whole analogy inverted. If roads were rapidly changing, we'd need dramatically different cars to handle the new roads.
Jtsummers 14y ago
Bad analogy. Car engines and transmissions are the heart of the vehicle, and those change frequently as well. Roads are a fundamental, static, landscape feature today. They're like telephone poles and fiber conduits, neither of which have changed much in recent times. Software APIs change to match the features/needs of the users and developers. Part of this is based on the changing hardware, part on desired features. The hardware today is vastly different than when OpenGL 1.1/1.5 was available so why should we be constrained to use it in the same fashion? In short, APIs shouldn't be static for now and forever, we'd only be limiting ourselves and ignoring the fact that sometimes things change and sometimes early decisions were wrong (or less effective than desired).