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From: mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Towards A Meaningful Performance Measure
Message-ID: <884@winchester.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Nov-87 16:04:29 EST
Article-I.D.: winchest.884
Posted: Thu Nov  5 16:04:29 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 04:22:54 EST
References: <861@winchester.UUCP> <2993@phri.UUCP> <864@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <3907@sol.ARPA> <881@mips.UUCP> <3113@husc6.UUCP>
Reply-To: mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 19
Keywords: benchmarks

In article <3113@husc6.UUCP> reiter@harvard.UUCP (Ehud Reiter) writes:
>So, I think that attempts to give good definitions for "MIPS" will remain
>fairly academic exercises, of little relevance to the "real world" of computing.

Unfortunately, one can do the whole song-and-dance about
	a) No one number is enough
	b) Benchmark the real applications
	c) Individual machines vary a lot
and somebody who hearsthat, and intellectually accepts that, will STILL
then ask you: "But how many mips is it?"  In particular, the trade press
ends up doing this by default, as they end up showing mips-ratings,
even in the same issues that contain good explanations of why this is only
a gross approximation.  Telling an accurate story takes a tremendous amount
of work, and is nontrivial to understand; that's why people want mips-ratings.
sigh.
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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