Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 13th Oct 2009 18:24 UTC, submitted by Lazarus
Not too long ago, Apple open sourced its Grand Central Dispatch library, which aids in developing multithreaded code. It was suggested that it could be ported to other platforms, and the FreeBSD team has done exactly that. They have also done a lot of work related to getting GCD to work in a POSIX environment.
Thread beginning with comment 389056
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-06-12
So, what is the solution, because the problem exist?
Processors have growing number of core and those core are not that much faster, there is just more of them. Normal code will run only on one of the, taking advantages of only 1/${number_of_core} of the power. "real world" applications need this power. I am not talking about IM client or your favorite text editor, but application used to do what a computer is aim to do, computation.
Edited 2009-10-13 20:20 UTC
Member since:2006-03-02
Wow. I'm absolutely amazed how someone could use EDUCATION as a reason to doubt someone's intelligence. You know, before I went back to grad school, I worked for nearly a decade developing Linux drivers, X11 drivers, designing chips, developing web sites, and among other things, writing parallel applications for real products used in the real world. So I also have plenty of practical experience.
But you probably wouldn't know much about practical experience either, being an uneducated toothless hick from the backwoods of the Appalachian mountains, living in a tattered wooden shack and using readin' ritin' and 'rithimitic books from the 1850's.
Ha! How do you feel now? You don't like it when the ad hominem attack comes in your direction, do you? You don't like it that I assume you're an idiot because you make ignorant comments, do you?
And really, I would love to see someone make a real, logical argument that explains why system-side knowledge of CPU resource allocation is "useless". Or why developing a tool that makes it more convenient for developers to use parallel resources is "useless". What do you consider to NOT be useless anyhow?
I can't help it. Sometimes I just HAVE to feed the trolls.
Edited 2009-10-13 20:27 UTC
Member since:2005-11-21
Wow. I'm absolutely amazed how someone could use EDUCATION as a reason to doubt someone's intelligence. You know, before I went back to grad school, I worked for nearly a decade developing Linux drivers, X11 drivers, designing chips, developing web sites, and among other things, writing parallel applications for real products used in the real world. So I also have plenty of practical experience.
But you probably wouldn't know much about practical experience either, being an uneducated toothless hick from the backwoods of the Appalachian mountains, living in a tattered wooden shack and using readin' ritin' and 'rithimitic books from the 1850's.
Ha! How do you feel now? You don't like it when the ad hominem attack comes in your direction, do you? You don't like it that I assume you're an idiot because you make ignorant comments, do you?
And really, I would love to see someone make a real, logical argument that explains why system-side knowledge of CPU resource allocation is "useless". Or why developing a tool that makes it more convenient for developers to use parallel resources is "useless". What do you consider to NOT be useless anyhow?
I can't help it. Sometimes I just HAVE to feed the trolls.
But you probably wouldn't know much about practical experience either, being an uneducated toothless hick from the backwoods of the Appalachian mountains, living in a tattered wooden shack and using readin' ritin' and 'rithimitic books from the 1850's.
Ha! How do you feel now? You don't like it when the ad hominem attack comes in your direction, do you? You don't like it that I assume you're an idiot because you make ignorant comments, do you?
And really, I would love to see someone make a real, logical argument that explains why system-side knowledge of CPU resource allocation is "useless". Or why developing a tool that makes it more convenient for developers to use parallel resources is "useless". What do you consider to NOT be useless anyhow?
I can't help it. Sometimes I just HAVE to feed the trolls.
What's area are you focusing on in Grad School?
And, how has the transition been back after being gone so long? [I'm contemplating a masters or two and want to know]
Member since:2007-01-22
Member since:2005-08-11
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-03-02
Member since:2007-03-15
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2008-10-04
Being a Ph.D. student specializing in computer architecture, I have experience that tells me that something like GCD can be very helpful. It's not a slam-dunk solution, but it is a nice solution to the problem of system-wide resource allocation. Before GCD (or equivalent), parallel processing people either assumed they would have the machine to themselves, or they would have to guess about what other processes are going to be running at the same time.
The fact that you are a Ph.D. student specializing in computer architecture is the exact proof that this is basically a useless solution.
We've seen this kind of nonsense spewed from the mouths of KNOW-NOTHING-IDIOTS like yourself over the decades concering GUI's,Filesystems,Computer Hardware/Software,AI,ect,ect,ect, and 90% of the time you clowns have been *FLAT-OUT-WRONG* about both what the problem was and the soloution to the problem.
Edited 2009-10-13 20:14 UTC