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Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

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Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#81

Post by usrusr »

DonHopkins wrote: post #75
kylebgorman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German "decade flip" is restricted to the tens and unit places; otherwise the order is English-like, with larger terms leading. The cardinal number systems for most major languages lead with larger terms (as in English). I don't think there's anything deep about this, it's probably an accident. And there are languages which lead with smaller terms, such as Malagasy (the national language of Madagascar). The order…

It's funny how the Germans and Dutch (rightfully) ridicule Americans for writing dates in middle-endian order like 9/11/2001, yet they say numbers with the decade flip "two and forty". That's just as ridiculous.

At least they (we) stay consistent between 13 and 99, while a certain other language elects to switch the flip at 20.

I think we should all take a moment to admire the francophone Swiss for boldly dropping much of the madness that is french counting. (Yes, I am looking at you, quatre-vingt-dix-neuf!)

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#82

Post by DerekL »

pilif wrote: post #68

I really hope this bitcode feature isn't going to cause a lot of trouble for app developers. Up until now, the app you built on your machine (and tested on your devices) is the app you submitted and which is running on your customers machines. In the future, when your app crashes on customer's machines and doesn't on yours, how are you going to debug much less explain this to apple and have them fix the issue for you…

You can download the newly compiled binaries to your test devices. The App Store won't release it to customers until you say it's okay.

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#83

Post by cactusface »

rjsw wrote: post #79
cactusface wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MM/DD/YYYY is simply a direct transliteration of spoken English, which makes it easy to read and write dates. In other languages, the spoken version is little endian or big endian, and the written version aligns accordingly. (At least for the languages I know.)

ITYM "... spoken American".

Are you saying it is commonly referred to as "The 11th of September, 2001" in England?

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#84

Post by coldtea »

Corrado wrote: post #72

When I read something like this my mind wanders and I imagine a future MacBook Pro that, instead of a single Intel processor, contains many ARM processors. 10-15 ARM processors acting as one could offer a whole lot of performance when you needed it (use all of them), and a whole lot of energy saving when you didn't (use 1 of them). With the current trend of multi-core CPUs, I see this as the ultimate form of the arch…

>I imagine a future MacBook Pro that, instead of a single Intel processor, contains many ARM processors. 10-15 ARM processors acting as one could offer a whole lot of performance when you needed it (use all of them), and a whole lot of energy saving when you didn't (use 1 of them). With the current trend of multi-core CPUs, I see this as the ultimate form of the architecture.

Doesn't make sense. What's the difference between "10-15 ARM processors" and 4-8-12 Intel based cores?

I mean apart from the fact that we aren't going back to multi-processor architectures, since there's no benefit from that compared to cores (latency, etc).

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#85

Post by unwind »

DannyBee wrote: post #16
stcredzero wrote: post #4

With Bitcode, Apple could change OS X into something like the old TAOS jit based OS. Except for a small kernel, all TAOS executables were intermediate representation files. This IR could be translated to real machine code at the same speed as disk access, and resulted in code running at 80-90% native speed on most platforms. With software like that, Apple could become independent of any particular software architectu…

"With software like that, Apple could become independent of any particular software architecture. " Not with the languages they use :) Neither C, nor C++, nor swift, can be made portable to new architectures through bitcode. At least, not without language-level changes to each of them. For example, for C and C++, sizeof is a constant expression, so you can't easily just do something like "defer evaluation to runtime"…

Good point.

One minor caveat: ~16 years ago, in C99, C got variable-length arrays (VLAs). If you use the sizeof operator on a VLA, it is evaluated at runtime.

Of course that doesn't change your argument; I just wanted to mention it for completeness' sake.

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#86

Post by maffydub »

cactusface wrote: post #83
rjsw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITYM "... spoken American".

Are you saying it is commonly referred to as "The 11th of September, 2001" in England?

As a British English speaker, I'd say "yes".

Technically, I'd drop the "th of" and just say/write "11 September 2001".

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#87

Post by smcgivern »

cactusface wrote: post #83
rjsw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITYM "... spoken American".

Are you saying it is commonly referred to as "The 11th of September, 2001" in England?

We would normally refer to that as September 11 because it's much more talked about in the US, and that's the phrase used there.

Any other dates will likely be in the same order as written. For instance, the rhyme for bonfire night is 'remember remember, the fifth of November'. I believe that many in the US also talk about the fourth of July, rather than July fourth, so it's not like English has the hard-and-fast rule you were proposing.

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#88

Post by cactusface »

smcgivern wrote: post #87
cactusface wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it is commonly referred to as "The 11th of September, 2001" in England?

We would normally refer to that as September 11 because it's much more talked about in the US, and that's the phrase used there. Any other dates will likely be in the same order as written. For instance, the rhyme for bonfire night is 'remember remember, the fifth of November'. I believe that many in the US also talk about the fourth of July, rather than July fourth, so it's not like English has the hard-and-fast rul…

Ok, fair enough. What do you say for non-special dates like July 3rd, 2015?

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#89

Post by cactusface »

maffydub wrote: post #86
cactusface wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it is commonly referred to as "The 11th of September, 2001" in England?

As a British English speaker, I'd say "yes". Technically, I'd drop the "th of" and just say/write "11 September 2001".

Interesting. Would you choose "three July twenty fifteen", "July third twenty fifteen", or "the third of July twenty fifteen" (substitute "two thousand" for "twenty" if you like)? Assume someone has asked you the date and you're responding out loud.

Re: Apple’s Bitcode Telegraphs Future CPU Plans

#90

Post by smcgivern »

cactusface wrote: post #88
smcgivern wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would normally refer to that as September 11 because it's much more talked about in the US, and that's the phrase used there. Any other dates will likely be in the same order as written. For instance, the rhyme for bonfire night is 'remember remember, the fifth of November'. I believe that many in the US also talk about the fourth of July, rather than July fourth, so it's not like English has the hard-and-fast rul…

Ok, fair enough. What do you say for non-special dates like July 3rd, 2015?

'Third of July, 2015' or more likely 'third of July'. The date format really isn't lying to us in UK English.
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