Re: Overview Of New Intel Core i7(Nehalem) Processor

Nobody wrote:
On Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:14:13 -0400, Phil Hobbs wrote:

PS: Some of us like the imperative model because we think computers should bloody well do as they're told.

This is probably the fundamental difference between the imperative and
declarative models. The declarative model tells the computer what to do;
the imperative model tells the computer how to do it, often in far too
much detail.

For you, maybe. Computers are stupid.

That detail can actually get in the way, e.g. inhibiting parallelisation.
If you specify a sequence of actions to be performed in a specific order,
the computer cannot always determine whether they actually need to be
performed in that order or whether the order is just an arbitrary choice.

I write highly efficient clusterized, optimizing electromagnetic simulators. Almost a factor of 2 faster than Berkeley Tempest on the same hardware, plus cluster support and N-parameter optimization on arbitrary user-specified criteria. I've been writing multithreaded and parallel code since OS/2 2.0 came out in 1992.

At least EEs have an excuse for using imperative languages. They actually
make sense when you're interfacing with hardware, as most things really do
need to occur in a specific sequence.

I can't tell you how relieved I am that you think so.

So Nobody thinks that declarative languages are better. Who are you really, and what do you do? What large scale programs or electronic designs or anything have you shipped?

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net
.

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