Author: Christophe Theron
Date: 10:40:25 08/19/03
Go up one level in this thread
On August 19, 2003 at 10:29:51, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>On August 18, 2003 at 12:08:35, Christophe Theron wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>Would you care to make a wager? 100% of _all_ intel processors sold today
>have two procesors, in a form called "hyper-threading". This will be extended
>over the next few years until a single "cpu" is really two or four completely
>independent processors.
>
>Just hide and watch...
Hyper threading does not require specific programming. The discussion initiated
from this point (specific programming for multiple processors generating
indeterminism).
>And no, I don't care about palms and the like. I'm talking about the
>traditional desktop/laptop PC. Times they are a'changing...
Yes I knew we were not talking about the same population. You don't care about
the million of handhelds out there, you don't care about 400 to 500 million
mobile phones sold each year...
That's fine with me. It's just your philosophy so there is nothing to argue.
It's just that there are also people out there who care about the population you
have chosen to not count in your stats.
>>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).
>
>You had better check your numbers. I just taught a parallel programming
>class with 52 students. 9 of them had dual-processor machines.
Your class is not representative of the rest of the world, I hope you realize
that.
>>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.
>>
>>
>
>Same here... to an extent. However, if you do as my wife does, and fire
>off a huge database query, and then do something _else_ while she is waiting,
>then that second processor comes in very handy, with no additional programming
>on her part...
>
>Or if you are compiling lots of stuff.
>
>Or -you-name-it ...
I agree with you here but it's something else. I did not argue that it was not a
good thing to have several processors. I just argue that the vast majority of
computers have only one and will continue to.
The number of multiple CPUs computer might increase. It's trivial to make that
point and I would not argue against it.
The important thing to note is that the number of single CPU computers
percentage is increasing even more due to the market extension of the
information technology.
Christophe
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