🚀 go-pugleaf

dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:

>Perhaps you mean to say, "very few programs *are able* to take
>advantage of 4 gigabytes in either code or data, and this is due to
>only arithmetic increases in the software industry's ability to
>increase the scope and complexity of its code, while simultaneously
>preserving or improving reliability and usability."

Nah, must be quantum leaps in our ability to produce space-efficient
codes :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)  :-)

>I have every reason to believe that I could benefit from a
>well-written program that required >4 GB address space. However, given
>the shortage of people with the type of scalable problems of low
>Kolmogorov complexity that can readily expand to fill such an
>architecture, I expect to see the "software gap" widening
>continuously, [until terrible things happen]

Sounds pretty scary.  Now, you'd never guess it from what appears
in comp.arch, but the chief use of cycles is pushing around 8 bit
unsigned quanitities that by convention stand for printable symbols
representing a curious code called the "alphabet".  So my challenge
to you (or anyone) is to tell me what your word processing would do
with 32+ addressing bits?  Ground rules: no Emacs jokes, can only
include the space costs of support tools when clearly part of the
word processing, and no credit for mere time advantages.  Well?

-- Jon
-- 
Jonathan Krueger    jkrueger@dtic.dla.mil   uunet!dgis!jkrueger
The Philip Morris Companies, Inc: without question the strongest
and best argument for an anti-flag-waving amendment.