Re: A scary story from the real world.

[anon@anon.org (anon)]

Microsoft may have a lot of weigh but they are more wrong in what 
they say then they are right! And they are great at passing the 
blame. What they forget to say is that from the 1980s they have 
enforce bad programming techniques. An example is the use of Basic
and allowing one line programs even though that one line was 
multi-statement taking 16k to 64k in length.

Another is their views on multicore and parallel processing.

I was talking about multicore and parallel processing back in September 
I came across an article about Microsoft and multicore processors. 
The article was something like Microsoft saying back in the 1980s 
that we would never need more than 640K for a ram size. 


   Title:  Microsoft sees shift to parallel in 10yrs
   Posted: 03 Sep 2007


   Multicore processors are driving a historic shift to a new parallel 
   architecture for mainstream computers. But a parallel programming 
   model to serve those machines will not emerge for five to 10 years, 
   according to experts from Microsoft Corp.

   ... 

by  Rick Merritt
EE Times


In talking to another person they said:

> This is kinda funny, mostly because some serious multi-core machines
> are available today. And with AMD entering the race with a quad
> Opteron, and 8-core systems from Intel on the immediate horizon, I
> expect to see prices for 4/8-way systems fall to a reasonable range
> within a year or two. Now, granted, my definition of "reasonable" may
> be slightly higher than some people's, but still.. they are coming,
> and they'll be here before the decade mark for sure.


And it is funny because there are basically four groups that are 
powering parallel processing. Group 0, or the original parallel group 
which is the scientific community. With government and tax payers 
paying the bill they have the money for multicore and parallel 
processing power, now. 

Then there is Group 1 which is business. Mostly at the movement is 
controlled by the internet and internet servers, they not only need 
the bandwidth but they need the processing power was well. Even though 
there is a small shift away from porn, the internet is still being paid 
by the biggest online money maker services aka porn. They have the money 
for multicore processing power and the need to use it, now.

Count Movies makers as Group 2.  Movie makers want to use special 
effects that are sometime dangerous or impossible to do. So, the 
count on special effects software to do the movie magic. The more 
power they have the more they can do in record time.  And with the 
movie going public able and welling to pay for that special effects 
movie, the movie makers have the cash for that power. And their need 
is now.

And Group 3, is the newest group but has deep pockets aka the Gamer, 
they want more power and are willing to achieve the power at any cost. 
And the Gamer is not going to wait for Microsoft's idea of 10 years. 
They want it, Yesterday. And with system like the "Powerstation 3" a 
8/7 (1 processor disabled) they are not waiting. The "Powerstation 3" 
uses an IBM RISC multicore processor that IBM has stated that they are 
coming out with a line of business and server models using that same 
multicore processor.

Besides  multicore and parallel processing groups. There is the masses 
of the world. They are not waiting for Microsoft, they want more power 
now, like the functions in an IPHONE or the new IPOD. And these 
embedded system are less likely to crash. So, those programmers who 
wrote the code have it going on. And some of those system may have 
been written in Ada.

So, the power brokers groups and the technology are not waiting for 
Microsoft to play once again catch up on technology.  They are slowly 
moving away from listening to a Dinosaur called Microsoft. 

May Be Microsoft should do a background check of the programmers they 
are blaming.  They probability would find these programmer have been 
mind wipe to believe only in Microsoft dogma. With no true vision 
of the current status or the future of the computer world.

But the scary part is that Microsoft may have to play hard ball aka 
the software patent or licenses just to stay in the game. Oops, sorry, 
they are already playing the licensing game, once again.

Plus, to Microsoft "Ada" is permanently dead! And C/C++, JAVA are on 
their death bed as well. Which leaves "Visual Basic" and the .net for the 
future of programming.


In <0Q0Zi.409$CT3.318@newsfet01.ams>, Per Sandberg <per.sandberg@bredband.net> writes:
>I was on a conference this week and that opened my eyes on the complete 
>ignorance of good compilers and languages in some the Reliable SW 
>communities.
>   http://www.issre2007.hv.se/extra/pod/
>There was lots of talks about on how to detect values out of bounds and 
>other problems that reasonable languages with type-system would find 
>probably at compile time.
>
>One Microsoft person said "we had lots of crashes in the system and the 
>cause of that was that the driver vendors did not look on the return 
>code from functions"
>Then the blamed the poor programmer for not reading the secret "users 
>manual".
>/Per
>
>
>
>