Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!uunet!mcsun!ukc!canon!otto From: otto@canon.co.uk (G. Paul Otto) Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Is this the end of the lisp wave? Message-ID: <1991Jan23.175538.25724@canon.co.uk> Date: 23 Jan 91 17:55:38 GMT References: <17374@csli.Stanford.EDU> <1991Jan23.080259.19816@Think.COM> <1991Jan23.094925.12728@ulrik.uio.no> Sender: Paul Otto Reply-To: otto@canon.co.uk Organization: Canon Research Europe, Guildford, UK Lines: 20 In article <1991Jan23.094925.12728@ulrik.uio.no> espen@math.uio.no (Espen J. Vestre) writes: > >However, harddisk (or even RAM) space is not a real problem any more, is >it? > You jest, I presume? Many real applications consume more memory (or disc) space than current machines tend to have. For example, I used to work on stereo matching of satellite images - each image was 36 Mb; this would grow to 144Mb if you used floating point, rather than bytes, for each pixel; and you wanted to work on a pair at once. Of course, you could chop the images into pieces - but the ensuing housekeeping & assorted complications considerably complicated the job. Just while prototyping one (comparatively simple) part of this job, I had to completely rewrite a C program 3 times to get its size down. [This wasn't bad planning - I tested the ideas on fragments with simple programs - then keep refining on more & more realistic data.] As processors (and cameras) become cheaper and more powerful, such tasks are likely to become more common ... Paul