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Moore's law doesn't apply to batteries. There's nothing stopping you from putting the MBA chip in a phone... except energy consumption. If your program in java

by rapind 13y ago

Moore's law doesn't apply to batteries. There's nothing stopping you from putting the MBA chip in a phone... except energy consumption. If your program in javascript takes 14 times as long to run than the equivalent C version and yet still manages to be performant from a user experience perspective, then you'd better be close to an outlet because we're talking about a beefy and energy hungry processor. There's a sweet spot related to programming effort and power consumption. I don't think Javascript can hit that sweet spot yet for most devices. I'd argue that the same problem, but to a lesser degree, is present in other non-mobile devices. I'll buy the one that costs $20 more but costs me $20 less per year on my energy bill. I think we may even see a bit of a reversal in the current trend of programmer productivity over program efficiency. Clusters of cheap multi-core servers consume significant energy.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
I remember mobile phones that had to be kept in the car because the batteries were like dumbbells. we lived with it because it was what we wanted. There are going to be physical limits to battery technology, to processing power, all of these things. but those limits are not upon us yet and I have a suspicion the true physical limits lie in a place that will make us 20th century simpletons look like slack jawed savages. I'm betting on science, bitches !
- RogerL 13y ago
  So, your conjecture is that physics will continue, but our appetite for new features will plateau? I don't buy that, personally; in fact I think it is exactly the opposite. I want a calendar program that is smarter than me, I want search that understands my tastes in restaurants, shoes, books. I want sw that immediately translates, perfectly and idiomatically, any language. I want to talk to my phone. I want it to compose music for me. I want a pony (okay, that last one is a different list). Now, we do know one limit - the human brain fits in an X sized area, and requires Y sized plumbing and energy store to accomplish what it does. My feature requests exceeds what any one brain can do. I'd be astonished if we could shrink that to phone sized, but maybe, just maybe. At that time we can renew this conversation. Until then, burning batteries, and running data centers, matters. Until then, C (or a safer version thereof) matters.

by rapind 13y ago

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

I remember mobile phones that had to be kept in the car because the batteries were like dumbbells. we lived with it because it was what we wanted. There are going to be physical limits to battery technology, to processing power, all of these things. but those limits are not upon us yet and I have a suspicion the true physical limits lie in a place that will make us 20th century simpletons look like slack jawed savages. I'm betting on science, bitches !

RogerL 13y ago
So, your conjecture is that physics will continue, but our appetite for new features will plateau? I don't buy that, personally; in fact I think it is exactly the opposite. I want a calendar program that is smarter than me, I want search that understands my tastes in restaurants, shoes, books. I want sw that immediately translates, perfectly and idiomatically, any language. I want to talk to my phone. I want it to compose music for me. I want a pony (okay, that last one is a different list). Now, we do know one limit - the human brain fits in an X sized area, and requires Y sized plumbing and energy store to accomplish what it does. My feature requests exceeds what any one brain can do. I'd be astonished if we could shrink that to phone sized, but maybe, just maybe. At that time we can renew this conversation. Until then, burning batteries, and running data centers, matters. Until then, C (or a safer version thereof) matters.