Live data from Hacker News

24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

randomascii.wordpress.com

21–30 of 101 posts

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#21

You should have asked your pointy haired boss. He could have explained the problem in much simpler terms. Would you expect 24 employees to write ONE email without 4 team leads and one department head? Obviously NO!! Your processors obviously need more management. I think Intel has the right offering for you, aka management engine.

New from Intel: the Scrum processor.

You joke, but seriously, this is generally a goal of distributed and/or parallel computing. Reduce interdependencies, stop constant cross chatter and try to do as much computing in isolation as possible.

Scrum’s not necessarily a bad anology. Here’s a different thought that this conversation has me now thinking about, what if we did think about development teams as CPU cores? We might discover weak points in the architecture of an organization, and recognize more quickly where we need to address bottlenecks. The bandwidth of the bus betweeen the cores might be too limited. The pipeline of work (backlog) might not be deep enough, and has a ton of branch statements (spikes) that may throw out the entire pipeline...

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#22
post #17
post #10

I have on my desk a machine that would be an equivalent of a large datacenter two decades ago and then sometimes it is barely able to keep up with me pressing keys on the keyboard. I think the next major step will be for the humanity to learn make software more efficient and effective rather than throw more CPU cycles at the problem.

Instead we get Electron, and people use it to make text editors that take up 500 MB of space.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations.

The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary target for most businesses in the last ten years.

Electron allows small teams to focus their most costly investment on developing toward one product being developed across many platforms.

I use electron apps that give a consistent experience, on macOS and Linux (not personally Windows, obviously as well), and then the same web app on Firefox, Chrome and Safari across those same platforms with the addition of my phone.

Yes, that comes at the cost of running a full browser, but it’s a logical choice when optimizing for the diverse computing landscape of today.

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead we get Electron, and people use it to make text editors that take up 500 MB of space.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations. The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary targe…

A good native app is still preferable. I understand, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#24
My MBP only has 8 cores but often times during the day it locks up and blows up a hurricane of fan noise. Why? Idiotic Jamf management software and a virus checker that never finds anything. Some days you only get 1 core for work when it gets stuck and have to reboot to get it back. It's not always the computer, OS or the software you use.

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations. The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary targe…

A good native app is still preferable. I understand, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I generally agree with this. And maybe WASM will offer some new options here, such that native code can now target the browser. That will give us different options for targeting all platforms, possibly allowing for a world where cross platform development doesn’t come at the cost of memory and performance.

We’ll see.

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#26
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead we get Electron, and people use it to make text editors that take up 500 MB of space.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations. The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary targe…

Electron allows small teams to focus their most costly investment on developing toward one product being developed across many platforms.

At the cost of battery life and memory usage for the users....

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations. The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary targe…

Electron allows small teams to focus their most costly investment on developing toward one product being developed across many platforms. At the cost of battery life and memory usage for the users....

I use VSCode (electron based) on a flight cross country regularly. I generally have enough power for the flight (4-5 hours), without much problem.

The memory usage hasn’t been bad enough for me to notice it stealing resources from other apps that need it. I don’t think most users notice.

I’m not talking about you. It’s clear this is a big deal to you, and so I assume you don’t use any electron apps. I think that’s a gamble most companies would make, losing a small number of users, to have the potential to gain many more.

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron allows small teams to focus their most costly investment on developing toward one product being developed across many platforms. At the cost of battery life and memory usage for the users....

I use VSCode (electron based) on a flight cross country regularly. I generally have enough power for the flight (4-5 hours), without much problem. The memory usage hasn’t been bad enough for me to notice it stealing resources from other apps that need it. I don’t think most users notice. I’m not talking about you. It’s clear this is a big deal to you, and so I assume you don’t use any electron apps. I think that’s a…

Visual Studio Code = real work with a complicated set of features. I expect it to consume a fair amount of memory and battery life.

Slack - Shouldn’t.

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#29
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead we get Electron, and people use it to make text editors that take up 500 MB of space.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations. The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary targe…

[deleted]

Re: 24-core CPU and I can’t type an email – part two

#30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead we get Electron, and people use it to make text editors that take up 500 MB of space.

Electron gets a lot of hate, but I think people generally are looking at the wrong thing when focusing on memory usage, ask yourself why it’s so important to so many organizations. The number one cost at most companies, is humans. Before electron what did you have for cross platform development? Java was there, but that never really took off for embedded UI inside the browser, and the browser became the primary targe…

"Looking at the wrong thing" is a matter of perspective. As a user, I couldn't care less that you saved money by writing a bloated web app. I care about the resources I have, which includes my own time, energy, money, computer, battery etc. In those terms, there are clear disadvantages to Electron based software.
Post reply on HN