>Most programmers have an intimate understanding of CPUs maybe this article is brilliant, but when the first line is something so blatantly untrue it really makes it hard to take the rest seriously
feels very much like https://xkcd.com/2501/
What every developer should know about GPU computing
51–60 of 186 posts
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#52>Most programmers have an intimate understanding of CPUs maybe this article is brilliant, but when the first line is something so blatantly untrue it really makes it hard to take the rest seriously
Definitely not true about most programmers, but maybe the author meant CS educated engineers. Going through a formal CS program will give you an intimate understanding of CPUs, especially when compared to the very light coverage of GPUs.
Maybe a generation thing, I remember reading Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book and learning a lot about cycle eaters in the CPU.
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#53>Most programmers have an intimate understanding of CPUs maybe this article is brilliant, but when the first line is something so blatantly untrue it really makes it hard to take the rest seriously
Try this on: "A non-trivial number of Computer Scientists, Computer Engineers, Electrical Engineers, and hobbyists have ..."
Took some philosophy courses for fun in college. I developed a reading skill there that lets me forgive certain statements by improving them instead of dismissing them. My brain now automatically translates over-generalizations and even outright falsehoods into rationally-nearby true statements. As the argument unfolds, those ideas are reconfigured until the entire piece can be evaluated as logically coherent.
The upshot is that any time I read a crappy article, I'm left with a new batch of true and false premises or claims about topics I'm interested in. And thus my mental world expands.
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#54Why are they still called GPU? PPU (Parallel Processing Unit) sounds like a better name.
CPUs are PPUs too
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#55Not every developer. I'm not trying to be snarky. I think there's an unhelpful compunction to want to know everything about everything among STEM types like programmers (of which I am one). Specialization is fundamental to the success, not just of whole economies, but of the individuals in them. It can feel like a paintful sacrifice to admit that you'll never (have time to) learn, say, the entire Python language spec…
At this point, I think the running shtick / inside joke of "Every Developer Should Know ..." headlines is that of course every developer doesn't need to know the contents of the article that follows.
I'm okay if "every" just means "most"; for example Spolsky's old "what every developers needs to know about Unicode" (which is the origin of this, AFAIK) is fine because most (but not all) developers will need to deal with text sooner or later.
But in this case it doesn't even mean that: all of this applies to a substantial minority of programmers, but definitely a minority.
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#56SIMD programming is f---ing wild.
Want to run a calculation for every pixel on your screen? No problem.
Want to have a branching condition? Ouchie.
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#57SIMD programming is f---ing wild. Want to run a calculation for every pixel on your screen? No problem. Want to have a branching condition? Ouchie.
Want to have eval? Stop everything.
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#58Why are they still called GPU? PPU (Parallel Processing Unit) sounds like a better name.
Vector Processing Unit would be more appropriate.
Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#59Re: What every developer should know about GPU computing
#60SIMD programming is f---ing wild. Want to run a calculation for every pixel on your screen? No problem. Want to have a branching condition? Ouchie.
Want to have eval? Stop everything.
Vectorized emulation is very interesting and fun, Brandon Falk (gamozolabs) has this series of hours-long streams and rust projects, you can start here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18222729