Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 09:08:35 08/18/03
Go up one level in this thread
On August 17, 2003 at 22:15:53, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On August 17, 2003 at 03:37:22, Johan de Koning wrote:
>
>>On August 16, 2003 at 05:13:23, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote:
>>
>>>On August 16, 2003 at 03:24:47, Johan de Koning wrote:
>>>
>>>>>Nondeterminism is something you can live with. Forget about getting
>>>>>the engine working on multiprocessor if you don't.
>>>>
>>>>So far you sound like someone trying to mimic Vincent. :-)
>>>
>>>But you sound like someone who avoided my point :)
>>>
>>>At some point you must choose between determinism and performance.
>>>I don't want to go to lengths to keep the engine deterministic only
>>>to find out later it can't be maintained AND I've lost time and
>>>speed trying to put off the inevitable.
>>
>>I'm not avoiding your point, I'm simply denying it. :-)
>>
>>There isn't such a thing as the point of no determinism, there are many points
>>at which choices can be made. If performance gain is small (playing games) I
>>will prefer determinism and simplicity. If gain is large (interactive analysis)
>>I will prefer determinism and perfection. In case determinism is impossible
>>(deep) I will prefer to maintain determinism for all other cases.
>>
>>>Hence the Santa Claus reference. You can stubbornly keep believing,
>>>but one day, he'll stop bringing presents. Or maybe it was just me who
>>>was a bad boy.
>>
>>If you quit being a bad boy Santa will return. :-)
>>
>>... Johan
>
>
>If you ever do a parallel search, forget about determinism. If you don't,
>forget about winning games. :) In another 5 years _all_ computers will
>have more than one cpu, on the same chip.
Bob it seems that you have a very selective definition of the term "computer"
and that you have chosen to ignore a very large part of the computerized devices
that real people use every day.
Less than 5% of all the computers on the planet will have more than one CPU in
10 years from now.
I would even tend to think that at this time and in the foreseeable future the
percentage of multiple CPU computers is not going to grow (in the population of
all the computers built every year).
In the context of this discussion, multiple CPU computers are for me computers
that require explicit programming in order to take advantage of the extra CPUs.
Christophe
>Therefore, determinism can't realistically be avoided. Clearing the hash
>table between searches is one of those "theoretical" issues. It is _clearly_
>better not to do so, from a raw performance perspective. For testing, it has
>its merits, and I often turn it on myself when debugging. But _only_ when
>debugging.
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