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No, it's not a huge waste. Maybe it is in the short run (<5 years), but there isn't any other way forward (quantum computing is not something we can count on fo
by sz4kerto 12y ago
No, it's not a huge waste. Maybe it is in the short run (<5 years), but there isn't any other way forward (quantum computing is not something we can count on for a while). Yes, with the current architectures and state of compilers it it kind of hopeless, but it doesn't mean we should give up on it.
- rtpg 12y agoWe can scale horizontally (more machines) as well as vertically (faster machines). If reasoning about more machines is easier than imagining faster machines (implicitly here: ones with more cores), then going the other route could be better
- sz4kerto 12y agoThe problem is exactly that we can't scale vertically. Look at single threaded performance charts -- they're already far below Moore's Law. STP/watt is increasing quickyl, but peak performance per core isn't really. (It is, but the second derivative of performance vs time is already negative.)
- ww520 12y agoThe point is the spending of huge effort in turning general processing programs into parallel programs is a waste of time. It's better to write simple single threaded single purpose program to run in a dedicated core. Since we will get more cores, offload single purpose program to a dedicated core is pretty cheap. Parallelism usually occurs in very coarse grain level. Forcing fine grain parallelism at language level is not very productive. The sad state of parallel support in languages and compilers is probably because we are pursuing the wrong goal.