Yup, looks like it's time for me to pull out the good ole Amiga 500 from the closet, and use it as my main PC again. Guru meditation errors anyone?
Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
511–520 of 702 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#512Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively, it could also be in the interest of many for these patches to have an inordinate negative affect on performance with Intel CPUs. I am reminded that Linus has experience in the CPU industry (Transmeta), so he is in a position to see both sides on this.
Sorta off-topic, but what did Linus actually do back at Transmeta? Did he contribute to their JIT compiler for x86?
Probably not secret anymore. CMS (the "Code Morphing Software" that implemented the x86 emulation) originally went straight to translation which was difficult to get correct and was expensive to do for code that might only be run once. Linus, when he joined said "That's stupid" and wrote an x86 interpreter which then acted as the first tier in the emulation. That let to a massive improvement in quality as more workloads could be tested and enabled an awesome creation by Jim Mattson (IIRC): self-cosimulation. CMS could be run in a mode where all translation were cross checked with the interpreter before the results were committed.
This was before my time and I'm sure he did much more. I only have first-hand knowledge of his work on TVM, the Transmeta x86 Virtualization which predated Intel (and AMD's) hardware support for x86 virtualization. Sadly it never productized. I suspect we couldn't find a way to monetize it.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linus' cursing works because he's Linus, not because he is cursing. There is really no evidence that if he uses strong but less abusive language the work won't get done.
>> There is really no evidence that if he uses strong but less abusive language the work won't get done. That is because there is no other copy of Linus. There's plenty of other lesser software developers who can't do a tenth of what Linus did in his life.
There's also no other copy of Donald Knuth, or Dennis Ritchie, or Alan Kay, or any other computer luminary. There's also no other copy of any "other lesser software developer" or you or me or the baristas at your closest Starbucks. What you've said in response is "the sky is blue": indisputably true and essentially irrelevant.
I'd argue that in fact, there is circumstantial evidence that brilliant computer programmers can get work done without occasionally making those they interact with miserable: that evidence is the fact that most brilliant computer programmers get work done without occasionally making those they interact with miserable. There is nothing that requires Linus to make strong points by jumping and down and screaming. That's an affection he deliberately chooses.
There's a strong notion through this whole comment thread of "if he didn't do that, nobody would listen to him," which is absolute nonsense. People don't listen to him because of these kinds of outbursts, they listen to him because he's Linus Torvalds. They listen to him in spite of these kinds of outbursts.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#514The most striking thing here is that Linus has apparently dismissed incompetence as a rational explanation. Yes, he is often brash, but usually he is accusing someone of sheer stupidity. He does not do that here. Linus alleges that we are being lied to - that we don’t know the full story, nor Intel’s motives. Furthermore, we are left to wonder if Microsoft is also being fed “bullshit” patches, and if they may be less…
>The most striking thing here is that Linus has apparently dismissed incompetence as a rational explanation. Yes, he is often brash, but usually he is accusing someone of sheer stupidity. He does not do that here. Linus alleges that we are being lied to - that we don’t know the full story, nor Intel’s motives.
"And that's actually ignoring the much _worse_ issue, namely that the whole hardware interface is literally mis-designed by morons."
Maybe you missed this line? Some classic Linus right there...
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#515"Boy that escalated quickly..."
https://youtu.be/ipsPgNEmAXI?t=301
Anchorman fight scene aftermath
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#516A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things.
The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons.
It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize others without inducing flame wars. It only works for Linus because people won't go nuclear in the response, but for rank and file engineers, especially of equal stature, if you call someone a moron in a thread, it's likely to kill productivity and create a negative testosterone ladden atmosphere of people trying to avoid being wrong, and counter attacking others.
I've worked at a lot of places where engineer got into heated shouting matches. It's is not a way to increase the probability of zeroing in on a problem, or reaching agreement faster.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#517Earlier quoted context omitted.
That bit sounds to me like Intel is trying to pull a "Volkswagen": have it perform better in benchmarks than in real life (when hopefully secure execution will be enabled).
More generally, an opt-in switch to disable unsafe behaviour expresses a clear intent to preserve the unsafe behaviour for the foreseeable future. Disabling unsafe behaviour for good on current chips and removing it from future ones would be equally easy, and clearly it isn't Intel's intent. Plausible reasons, apart from looking good in benchmarks, include ease of access for their three-letter friends and not botheri…
I would hope that it would not be removed if there is a performance difference. Not all systems are multi user, thinking stuff like includeos or systems that can control their interaction such that the risk in very minimal and not worth the cost.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#518A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…
Is this public discussion an attempt to "zero in" on this problem? Does anyone outside of Intel "agree" with their current approach? This is a more reasonable situation for the Torvalds method than many others in which he uses it.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#519Earlier quoted context omitted.
More generally, an opt-in switch to disable unsafe behaviour expresses a clear intent to preserve the unsafe behaviour for the foreseeable future. Disabling unsafe behaviour for good on current chips and removing it from future ones would be equally easy, and clearly it isn't Intel's intent. Plausible reasons, apart from looking good in benchmarks, include ease of access for their three-letter friends and not botheri…
I would hope that it would not be removed if there is a performance difference. Not all systems are multi user, thinking stuff like includeos or systems that can control their interaction such that the risk in very minimal and not worth the cost.
If it were removed, the new processors would simply be worth less than the ones that immediately preceded them. The systems you're thinking about would then cost less. What's the problem?
The problem, of course, is that vendors couldn't pretend to sell systems that are worth the prices they would have quoted before all of this awfulness was exposed. That would be a problem for the vendors only. The rest of us would be better off.
Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”
#520A lot of people trying to defend being a jerk as necessary in these circumstances. I think Google culture proves the opposite: Googley code and peer reviews, blameless postmortems, and a host of other mechanisms that de-escalate and de-personalize things. The Meltdown work at Google probably didn't begin with a rant about morons. It's possible to construct a culture where people can air grievances and criticize other…
This is obvious, and it's extremely sad to me that people believe otherwise and vehemently argue that Linus is justified in his pety rants. It was always pathetic.
The response is shockingly adult, given the culture Linus insists on trying to push:
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1801.2/05282.html
What an excellent writeup, despite the tantrum Linus threw just a few replies earlier.
I'd highly recommend only reading the response and avoiding the Linus 'rant'. The rant contains no valuable information, the response is excellent and far more informative.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool!