Re: Accelerator //e

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <1998032120064900.PAA01370@ladder03.news.aol.com>,
Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:
>Like someone else said, modern programmers no longer write fast
>programs -- they write slow programs and wait for the hardware to
>get faster.

   You've got a speed upgrade for the Playstation, N64, Saturn,
Genesis, SNES, vectrex, or any other game console? I'd sure love to
see it, as that'd save me a bit of work optimizing stuff to work. [And
dropping it in liquid nitrogen doesn't count :] Consoles last at least
4-5 years, and there's zero chance of really waiting for the hardware
to get fast. Some of us writing software these days do get the
discipline of fixed hardware speeds.

   A *lot* of GS programmers have gone into console videogames (at
least we get paid for our work there) simply because we know how to
optimize stuff to work on a box with 2MB code & data ram. You can also
look towards the PC demo scene for people with an optimizing clue--
ever see a non-interactive flythru of Descent level #1 in under 4096
bytes? [I think that's Sanction's _Omniscient_ ; go to www.hornet.org
for download points]

   Time pressures in the current PC industry are one of the biggest
problems towards releasing (1) stable and (2) fast code. Marketing
depts have taken over schedules, saying "We ship on this date; give us
what you've got" leading to tons of patches, crashes, and bloated
code.  If most of the aforementioned marketing folks got real jobs
elsewhere and left programmers along, things might be a good lot
better.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein