Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!apple!sun-barr!ames!purdue!haven!vrdxhq!daitc!daitc.daitc.mil
From: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Criteria ... [really: are N designs better than 1?]
Message-ID: <517@daitc.daitc.mil>
Date: 12 May 89 07:11:56 GMT
References: <2368@ogccse.ogc.edu> <1464@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> <141@dg.dg.com> <156@dg.dg.com> <658@pitstop.West.Sun.COM> <19088@winchester.mips.COM> <169@dg.dg.com>
Sender: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil
Reply-To: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger)
Organization: DTIC Special Projects Office (DTIC-SPO), Alexandria VA
Lines: 36

In article <169@dg.dg.com>, mpogue@dg (Mike Pogue) writes:
>My preference is to have a third party do the numbers (no fudging allowed!).

My preference is for a first party: me.  If you publish figures from
commonly available benchmarks, I can replicate them later.  And I'm
more inclined to trust them in the meantime.

Third party benchmarking is exactly as good as the third party.  I
have no better basis to evaluate their work than yours.  "No fudging
allowed" is a pious hope.  The history of testing organizations does
not support it.  Does MIPS magazine get its support exclusively from
its readers?  For how many years?

When the goal is measurement, why shouldn't the test conditions and
predicted outputs be made publicly available?  If a "third party" were
to announce cold fusion, we'd all be forgiven for wanting to see
outside replication.  And although it may be hard to believe right
now, computer benchmarking is actually a more sordid business than
nuclear physics.  Well, okay, it's close :-)

>Look for an upcoming issue of MIPS magazine for a relatively unbiased set
>of numbers on our AViiON ($7995) workstation.

Oh, I see...the DATA is ELSEWHERE?

Please, how about some real data?

You find it convenient enough to post your product name and price in
this forum.  Why then is it too much trouble for you to provide data,
for instance the specific data to back up your performance claims?

-- Jon

Jonathan Krueger 
...uunet!daitc!jkrueger     jkrueger@daitc.mil     (703) 998-4600
		My opinions are not necessarily those of my wallpaper.