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Path: utzoo!mnetor!yetti!geac!john
From: john@geac.UUCP (John Henshaw)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: brash micros versus the Big Iron: not yet
Message-ID: <1297@geac.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Sep-87 10:15:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: geac.1297
Posted: Tue Sep  1 10:15:53 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Sep-87 00:49:52 EDT
References: <622@winchester.UUCP> <12953@amdahl.amdahl.com> <630@winchester.UUCP>, <8524@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: GEAC Computers, Toronto, CANADA
Lines: 30
Summary: deep thot

In article <8524@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > It is amusing to see the hardware people champion "simplicity" of design
> > at the expense of software complexity, while software people clamor
> > for "simplicity" of design at the expense of hardware complexity
> > (for example, Niklaus Wirth)....
> 
> Many of the software people are among those clamoring for simplicity of
> hardware design, mostly because the hardware designers have such a history
> of getting things wrong when they try to be clever.

Software designers aren't the bee's knees either. The only big
difference is in the "medium of cleverness".

However, I think that reasons for this bias run deeper than that... In
particular, software is more "malleable" than hardware and therefore in
many ways, far easier to work with than hardware. This of course means
that it provides plenty of opportunity to make mistakes, but I believe
that the cost of repairing those software mistakes is *usually* lower
than that of hardware.

Along the same lines, I note that an algorithm can't "break", whereas
hardware can and (if we wait long enough,) will. Once the software is
"right" (working correctly), we then need reliable hardware. Simple
hardware tends to be more reliable.

-john-
-- 
John Henshaw,			(mnetor, yetti, utgpu !geac!john)
Geac Computers Ltd.		"My back to the wall,
Markham, Ontario			 a victim of laughing chance..."