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A bit meta, but for those who were not previously aware of Real World Tech, if you enjoyed this article then do dig into the archives. David Kanter does awesome
by dmunoz 13y ago
A bit meta, but for those who were not previously aware of Real World Tech, if you enjoyed this article then do dig into the archives. David Kanter does awesome writeups of (mostly) CPU and GPU architectures. I consider them a step beyond Anand Shimpi's write ups, the most recent of which was recently shared on HN, concerning Apple's Cyclone Microarchitecture [0]. They're published very infrequently, with the front page of RWT still having two articles from 2012 appearing.
Although it's not exactly relevant to the type of programming I do, I still find it useful to understand how modern processors actually work. At the very least, reading architecture articles helps me to understand exactly why certain processors are faster at specific tasks than others.
While I think it's great that David is being paid to write what he is good at, it's slightly disappointing to me that his long form writeups are going to be behind a pay wall at Microprocessor Report, which is covered in the recent article "Splitting my time between MPR and RWT" [1]. The submitted article is likely one of the few more in-depth articles he talked about being release in the next several months.
[0] http://anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone-microarchitecture-detailed http://anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone-microarchitect...
[1] http://www.realworldtech.com/mpr/ http://www.realworldtech.com/mpr/
- sliverstorm 13y agoNot just any paywall, either. A single seat subscription runs $1k/year.
- AceJohnny2 13y agoHow would you compare Kanter's writing with Jon Stokes' writeups on ArsTechnica (back in the day) (For example: http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/09/intels-next-must-have-upgrade-a-look-at-sandy-bridge/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/09/intels-next-must-hav...)
- dkanter 13y agoJon and I are good friends, and we have very different styles. I don't write for a mainstream audience - I write for computer architects, programmers, and IT folks. My greatest strength (IMO) is that I can write clearly and in great detail about complex topics such as CPUs, GPUs, etc. Jon's strength is taking a very complex subject and making it much more approachable to a larger audience. Sometimes that involves simplifying things, but that's quite reasonable.
- ableal 13y ago> A bit meta Also, you'd often seen Linus Torvalds in the comments section at RWT.