Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site wateng.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!wateng!ksbszabo
From: ksbszabo@wateng.UUCP (Kevin Szabo)
Newsgroups: net.works
Subject: Re: Big & little machines & problems
Message-ID: <2466@wateng.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 2-Jun-85 04:00:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: wateng.2466
Posted: Sun Jun  2 04:00:10 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Jun-85 05:44:58 EDT
References: <2079@topaz.ARPA> <582@terak.UUCP>
Reply-To: ksbszabo@wateng.UUCP (Kevin Szabo)
Organization: VLSI Group, U of Waterloo
Lines: 35
Summary: 

>> 	- you can write it all in assembler and be an "iron man" like
>> Doug (and me in past lives), and God help you if the person involved
>> ever leaves, gets run over by a truck, loses interest, etc.

>But I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I read the suggestion
>that employers shouldn't hire talented people because if those people
>left then the company would be in trouble!

The original posting never mentioned anything about not hiring talented
people to do a job.  Quite the opposite actually.  It was more a comment
that you shouldn't hire people with TUNNEL vision.  It is very interesting
that you are still arguing the advantages of assemblers over High Level
Languages while people are finding compilers preferable in designing
HARDWARE.  Yes, I'm talking about Silicon Compilation and its next of
kin, Symbolic Layout.  Both INITIALLY have a penalty in speed
and chip size, however silicon is at the point where the emphasis
has moved from squeezing a cpu onto a chip to a new outlook of
trying to get the chip designed before the I.C. process is obsolete.
Sorta sounds like operating systems development ten years ago
doesn't it? As designers start using high level design tools they
find that their designs can even turn out smaller than manually
designed circuits.  This occurs because design is fast enough that
a few approaches can be experimented with, and initial design decisions
are not as expensive to reverse when necessary.  Machines like the MicroVax*
and the ethernet chips would have never made it to market as quickly
as they did without the benefit of High Level Design.  And you're still
harping on assembler.  Sheesh.

I hope everybody appreciates my not repeating all the talk
about mom, apple pie, and greats like Amdahl & Cray.  How all that
fit in with the original statement I'll never know.

					Kevin
-- 
Kevin Szabo  watmath!wateng!ksbszabo (U of Waterloo VLSI Group, Waterloo Ont.)