Author: Jeremiah Penery
Date: 14:38:23 03/05/03
Go up one level in this thread
On March 05, 2003 at 11:45:20, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On March 05, 2003 at 01:19:12, Jeremiah Penery wrote: > >>On March 04, 2003 at 23:06:39, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On March 04, 2003 at 19:22:50, Matt Taylor wrote: >>> >>>>Nonsense. 486 is all you have to support to be compliant with the full ISA. >>> >>>You remind me of my son. :) >>> >>>To wit: when the "walk" light comes on, he is going to walk across the >>>street because he _has_ the right of way. I keep telling him that he is >>>right of course, and one day he might end up _dead_ right. >>> >>>I personally look before walking regardless of the color of the light. I look >>>before I leave when a light turns green, to be sure some idiot is not going to >>>run the light and make _me_ "dead right". >>> >>>And that is where we are here. You want to advertise that a machine is >>>equivalentto intel, but faster and cheaper, feel free. And if you want to stand >>>on the fine print "but if a program uses cmov without checking the CPUID >>>processor capability bits it is a bad piece of software." But the _customers_ >>>will think the machine is broken, and _they_ are the ones you are trying to >>>market to. You end up right. Dead right. >>> >>>There is "right" and there is "right". >> >>When you don't check the CPUID flags before using certain instructions, you are >>the one walking across the street without checking for traffic. > > >You think the average programmer understands that? I don't think the average >programmer >even understands assembly language, much less that different processors might >have different >instruction sets even though they are called "compatible". When AMD says the K6 > >is compatible >with the PII, but faster/cheaper, then I expect it to be _compatible_. As will >most software >developers. How many times have _you_ looked at .S output from gcc to see what >instructions >it produces? I do it all the time and _I_ didn't think about an "equivalent >cpu" being _almost_ >"equivalent". Did AMD specifically say the K6 was P2 compatible, or just a general Intel compatible? If they specifically stated P2+ compatibility, I might agree that they made a mistake. >If everyone was a compiler expert, this might be forseeable. But they aren't. >And I doubt >most would think that -target=pentiumII would break a processor that is supposed >to be >compatible. > >Can I say more? A lot of the average programmers probably don't even know to use a specific processor target (when using GCC), or they use some other compiler. I'd expect someone who uses specific processor targets in their compile to have some basic understanding of assembly. >For the streetlight issue, the streetlight is not hanging over the street in >plain sight. It is >buried under the light pole, with a door with a combination lock on it that has >to be opened >so it can be seen. Do you expect John/Jane Doe to know that when there is no >sign on the >pole that says "look here for compatibility issues"??? > >I don't. I'm not sure I expect Jonn/Jane Doe to understand that you have to even look for traffic, whether the light says 'WALK' or not. Obviously, there are a lot of people who fit in that category.
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.