Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!spdcc!ima!cfisun!stardent!wright
From: wright@stardent.Stardent.COM (David Wright @stardent)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: It looks like he's at it again!
Message-ID: <1990Jul12.012730.4248@Stardent.COM>
Date: 12 Jul 90 01:27:30 GMT
Organization: Stardent Computer, Newton MA
Lines: 59

In article <63692@sgi.sgi.com>, karsh@trifolium.esd.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh)
writes:

>In article <1990Jul10.072443.4844@cs.UAlberta.CA> cdshaw@cs.UAlberta.CA (Chris
>Shaw) writes:
>>Anybody who gripes about the slowness of his machine, and who can afford to 
>>spend the substantial amount of time it takes to tweak code for the last drop
>>of CPU power is dealing with programs that are pretty small.
>>Usually.

>Ah, the Computer Science Religion again.  It's blasphemy to talk about
>using assembly code to speed up programs.  The anger and the insults in
>the responses one receives when one suggests using assembler is really
>a phenomenon.  Could it be that the anger and the name-calling is
>because the anti-assembly forces don't really have a good case - just a
>set of beliefs?

Oh, stick it in your ear, Karsh.  What is it with you and computer science,
anyway?  Sure, there are plenty of dingbat undergrads who come out with a
CS degree and think they know it all, but that's true of any field.  None
of the really good computer scientists I've met were arguing that there
was no place for assembly language in writing computer systems.  I've got
a PhD in CS, and I use assembler when and where necessary.  So do the other
PhDs I know.

Herman Rubin shows up on the net with his usual tunnel vision about what
he needs to solve his problems, so Chris Shaw writes an equally intemperate
rebuttal, and here you are blazing away at the "Computer Science religion."
Take it to alt.flame, will you?

>Yet another reason might be that you want to sell the program to a very large
>market.  Customers don't like to wait for answers.  If you plan on selling
>a few hundred thousand copies of a program, it may be worth spending a couple
>of days to make the slow parts fast.  You can use a few day's of programmers
>time or you can waste hundreds of thousands of end-user's time.  Which makes
>more sense?

IF we're talking a few days, sure, it makes sense, and that's where you're
going to get the most bang for the buck anyway -- the hot spots are easy 
to find and you do them first.  But there are plenty of people who get so
hypnotized by the speed improvements that pretty soon they're ready to go
out and write the whole damn application in assembler and it's goodbye to
portability.

As usual, the sensible approach is somewhere between the extremes.

>Often I think many programmers don't care at all how long things take.
>If you don't believe this, just watch a Unix workstation boot.  Ten
>million instructions per second, and it still takes minutes to boot.

Amen to this, at least.  Even some O/S programmers, who spend a lot of
time in the lab waiting for computers to boot up, are guilty here.

"Gimme that old-time religion, gimme that old-time religion..." :-)

  -- David Wright, not officially representing Stardent Computer Inc
     wright@stardent.com  or  uunet!stardent!wright

This posting represents the official position of the U. S. Government