[cap-talk] Butler Lampson's upcoming talk

[Sam Mason]

On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 07:42:49PM +0100, Charles Forsyth wrote:
> > I was under the impression that RISC was well and truly alive.  Most of
> > the newer (desktop/server) processor designs (i.e. PowerPC and Cell)
> > seem to be basically RISC designs.  I also thought that most embedded
> > processors were RISC as well, except maybe the really tiny ones.
> 
> have you seen the instruction set for the PowerPC?

No, maybe now would be a good time to check...

> it's load/operate/store, and indeed i quite like it compared to some,
> but it is by no means `R'ISC.  Lampson is talking about the dreams of RISC taking
> over the world, which was the original plan.  hence Power-PC,
> but the -PC aspect never really happened.
> have you seen the instruction set for the amd64?

No, I only know older versions of it.  I've only programmed i386
assembly usefully before, I've played around with micro-controllers as
well but not for long.

> that's the one we're visibly using.

On desktop PCs yes, but you've got many more computers in your home/car
that aren't PCs.

> >He also puts "distributed computing".
> >He refers to the web later on,
> >isn't that a big distributed computing environment?
> 
> no, not in the sense he means, for instance:
> does the web (at large) use any of the work developed by distributed systems people?
> hardly any (except internally and invisibly, as within Google).

OK, so it's just the abstract/slides needing someone to explain them.

As an aside, in which other disciplines does research get quickly used
by all the people who would stand to benefit from it?  I'd be inclined
to say that CS is particularly bad, but then again I'm most familiar
with it and therefore can't even pretend to be a dispassionate observer.

> you need to hear or read the full talk.

Indeed I do! flying over to the US to see it in real life would be a
little extravagant.


  Sam