Author: Tom Kerrigan
Date: 13:26:46 01/27/00
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On January 27, 2000 at 13:17:32, Robert Hyatt wrote: >The point is on "what" architecture? 40K on a sparc == 20K on an X86. Not really. You have been arguing for a long time that the DB evaluation function could not be implemented on a PC simply because it is too expensive. My goal is simply to "prove" that it's not too expensive, and by extension, some PC programs probably have equal (possibly better) functions. This "proof" doesn't require the exact number of instructions. FHH's estimate could be off by a factor of 2, and the function would still not be too expensive. >Even more important, is deriving that 40K estimate. It would take a _lot_ >of thought to come up with a real number, because hardware design doesn't >translate to "N instructions" trivially. IE I suspect that the number 40K >is just a big number that was used to illustrate how much stuff DB is doing >in the hardware chips using parallel circuits. I think this theory is deeply insulting to FHH. He has published his estimate in a well-regarded and widely-read journal, and he didn't give any HINT of a warning that the estimate has any error at all. By saying that 40k "is just a big number" you are attacking his professional integrity. Let's say you're trying to sell your house. You know that your house is pretty big, so you place an advertisement in the newspaper saying that it's 8 million square feet. Somebody comes to look at the house and points out that it's nowhere near 8 million square feet. Would you say, "Oh, yeah, it actually takes some effort to measure the size of a house, so I just figured I would convey the impression that it's big." No, you wouldn't say that, because it's lying. And neither would Hsu. I think it would actually be fairly easy to come up with an estimate like this. You just go through all the terms you have, and imagine how you would implement them in software. Guess at how many instructions it would take and add everything up. For example, if you know that finding a doubled pawn takes about 5 instructions, and you think that you could find an isolated pawn the same way, you can guess that it's another 5 instructions. And so on. -Tom
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