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| From | Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.misc, alt.folklore.computers |
| Subject | Re: Are we just running in place? |
| Date | 2015-11-04 17:55 +0100 |
| Organization | Me, Myself and I |
| Message-ID | <rtppgc-5bc.ln1@sambook.reistad.name> (permalink) |
| References | <d9h7ivF1apvU1@mid.individual.net> <iHb_x.156225$n_1.9881@fx47.am4> <n1c1us$c9i$1@z-news.wcss.wroc.pl> <V1p_x.113230$8s6.73562@fx46.am4> |
Cross-posted to 2 groups.
In article <V1p_x.113230$8s6.73562@fx46.am4>, BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote: >On 04/11/2015 04:35, Waldek Hebisch wrote: >> In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote: > >>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or >>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. > >> If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will >> be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the >> the same features as the old one, then there is no need >> for more complexity. > >When you speed up a processor clock by 1000 times, why shouldn't the >same program run faster? > >Modern software is more sophisticated, but it's mostly the extra memory >and storage that makes it possible. Does it really need a 1000x faster >machine just to run at the same speed as the old one? > >(In 1981 I wrote a little assembler for Z80, running on a 2.5MHz Z80 >(where each 8-bit instruction took between 4 and 24 clock ticks). It >processed source code at 1700 lines per second. > >I recently tested NASM, running on a 3GHz 64-bit x86 processor (with >multiple 64-bit operations per clock), and it managed 23000 lines per >second, only 13 times as fast! > >There is some very fast software around, but equally a lot of it is >inexplicably slow.) > >> caches something as simple as matrix multiplication sudenly >> needs smart algorithm: > >Smart algorithms don't necessarily mean huge bloated code. If something >needs a million lines of code, then it's not an algorithm! (1M lines is >about 15000 pages; even the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was only >about 100.) > >(I use my own language for programs for which other people use C. And I >run my own compiler for that. That compiler is about 0.3MB. > >It does pretty much the same job as, for example gcc, for which a >typical installation might be 300MB. And even that is small compared >with Visual C, for which you're looking at a 5000-11000 MB download. gcc binaries for arm7 takes 6811 kilobytes to download and 22700 kilobytes in the file system. A far cry from 300 meg. Now, the LIBRARIES for everyone and their dog might take more. Much more. >See, it is still possible to keep things small and manageable. But >programs don't need to be as tiny as mine, they just don't really need >to be 1000 to 10000 times bigger.) > > you can use just three simple loops >> or library lile ATLAS. Only problem is that simple method >> is something like 500 time slower for big matrices. > >The sort of complexity I'm concerned with is not really about such >low-level algorithms. It's about systems getting too big enough that no >one really knows what is going on. > >People build on top of other systems which are built on top of others, >and eventually you've got a horrible bloated mess. And a slow one! > >(I know I will be castigated for using Windows in this apparently >Unix-dominated group, but here goes. Until recently, every morning on my >PC, a program called SVCHOST would take over my machine. It occupied one >core of two, but still, everything else practically ground a halt. > >It carried on for some half an hour. If stopped, it would start again, >or there would be problems with connectivity later. It wasn't a virus >either! > >It turned out to be something to do with Windows updates, but it never >reported any actual updates, it never actually /did/ anything. It just >made the machine - my machine that I want to work on - impossible to >use. Other people had the same problems. > >It was solved by disabling something to do with the updates. The >question remains, why would MS allow something like this to run that >would effectively cripple customers' machines? What exactly was it doing >that required so much CPU power? Does anyone know for sure? I doubt it!) Technology indestinguishable from magic. It does not have to be advanced, it just has to be hidden. >>> Unicode means using 2 or 4 bytes per character instead of 1, that's all. >>> And storage schemes such as UTF8 mean that text files needn't take up >>> that much more space. As for those that tables indexed by character: you >>> simply wouldn't have a table with 64K or 1M entries; you'd use another >>> approach (and probably for most purposes, special characters will be >>> part of the ASCII subset). >> >> Exactly, you need another approach, like hash tables with entries >> only for relevant characters, or lists or ranges. >> >>> Supporting Unicode with a big selection of fonts means a lot more data, >>> but not necessarily that much more complexity (not of the order of 100 >>> or 1000 anyway). You would also expect such software to be optimised for >>> the default language. >> >> In ASCII era you would have a table with charater properties >> which can take 128 bytes (for 8 binary properties). Together >> with accessor functions less than 1kb. Corresponding >> library for Unicode when I looked at it were 2.7 MB. >That's just data. You flash an image onto the screen; that's 1MB or 2MB; >it's nothing, because the capacity is there. With a 1920 x 1280 32-bit screen that is around 10 MB. And that is what I would consider a usable desktop. >What's exasperating (this is again Windows), is you right-click >something (a file, icon, whatever), and sometimes you can count slowly >to ten before it even shows a pop-up list of options. You're not asking >for some complicated calculations, you just want it to show 'Properties' >so that you can click on it! > >So what was it spending ten seconds doing? The problem is there's >apparently no-one whose job it is to find out. They only know how to add >complexity: buy more RAM, a faster machine, download add-on software to >'clean' your system, or download yet another upgrade! I see why I chose to not use that platform around a decade and a half ago. -- mrr
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Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-10-30 15:53 +0300
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 13:43 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 10:28 -0400
Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-10-30 15:34 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-10-30 09:05 -0700
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:25 -0400
Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-30 17:28 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:32 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-11-01 20:01 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:11 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2015-11-04 22:29 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Larry Sheldon <lfsheldon@gmail.com> - 2015-11-04 16:44 -0600
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-04 23:04 -0500
Re: Are we just running in place? Larry Sheldon <lfsheldon@gmail.com> - 2015-11-04 22:34 -0600
Re: Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-11-05 10:30 +0300
Re: Are we just running in place? Stephen Chadfield <stephen@chadfield.com> - 2015-11-05 13:39 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-30 17:30 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-10-31 08:05 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:01 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 17:34 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:49 -0400
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 18:23 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:59 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-11-01 01:33 -0300
Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:19 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-11-04 21:21 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:33 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com> - 2015-11-01 12:59 -0500
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2015-11-03 17:29 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? fmassei@gmail.com - 2015-11-03 10:14 -0800
Re: Are we just running in place? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-10-30 18:39 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 19:22 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "Dirk T. Verbeek" <dverbeek@xs4all.nl> - 2015-10-30 20:27 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-10-30 20:08 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-10-30 21:21 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-10-31 04:15 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-02 14:19 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-11-02 16:15 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-02 12:29 -0500
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-02 19:13 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-11-02 21:25 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-03 14:03 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-10-30 21:11 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2015-11-01 01:23 -0300
Re: Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-10-30 20:05 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Johnny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2015-10-30 19:53 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com> - 2015-11-01 12:09 -0500
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-01 09:42 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-01 13:33 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2015-11-02 12:45 +1100
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-02 11:06 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-11-03 22:06 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-03 23:43 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-04 13:52 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-03 23:46 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-11-04 04:35 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 10:24 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2015-11-04 09:55 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 12:42 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 14:57 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-04 11:29 -0500
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-04 16:43 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 17:55 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 18:04 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-04 18:48 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-11-04 13:05 -0600
Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 19:36 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 21:15 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 21:35 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> - 2015-11-04 21:07 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-11-04 10:36 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-03 23:52 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> - 2015-11-04 02:56 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-04 11:05 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-11-04 03:12 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 10:02 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? Andreas Eder <a_eder_muc@web.de> - 2015-11-08 11:48 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:36 +0100
Re: Are we just running in place? "John Jackson" <jj@nospam.com> - 2015-11-05 09:01 +1100
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-05 00:09 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-04 11:03 -0500
Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-11-04 21:25 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-11-05 08:01 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-10-31 15:09 +1100
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-31 11:11 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-10-31 14:57 +0300
Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-31 10:19 -0400
Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-31 16:28 +0000
Re: Are we just running in place? wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-10-31 04:14 -0700
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