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Welcome Chris Lattner

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Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#171

Post by dwaite »

shiny wrote: post #127
freyir wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swift, XCode, and Apple software in general don't scream reliability to me. No doubt Lattner is a smart guy, but I'd be more comfortable with a smart guy from NASA or somewhere similar with experience developing survival-critical software systems.

Pretty much none of Apple's current software is written in Swift though, from what I can tell.

Actually a fair bit is in Sierra. Apple decided apparently not to invest resources in targeting 32-bit platform support, so they have had to hold off shipping software relying on it until the platforms drop 32-bit support. Sierra did that last year, and I'd put $5 on iOS 11 doing that as well.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#173

Post by brokencode »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #170
devsquid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARC is a whole debate, but the one thing it is not is simple and I would argue its more error prone than a traditional GC. I've used it for most of my career and I have seen what sloppy/unaware coding can do to it. Lattner is a well known expert on compilers. Having used Swift since its inception, I would call into question the reliability of the Swift LLVM compiler. In its current state (3.0.2) its absolutely terrib…

The right comparison for ARC is with manual memory management -- not GC.

Not really. They are both valid comparisons, since ARC is much easier to work with than manual management and can offer more predictable performance than GC. That said, it's also slower than manual management and can be trickier to work with than GC.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#174

Post by adevine »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #170
devsquid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARC is a whole debate, but the one thing it is not is simple and I would argue its more error prone than a traditional GC. I've used it for most of my career and I have seen what sloppy/unaware coding can do to it. Lattner is a well known expert on compilers. Having used Swift since its inception, I would call into question the reliability of the Swift LLVM compiler. In its current state (3.0.2) its absolutely terrib…

The right comparison for ARC is with manual memory management -- not GC.

Depends on what your point is. Both ARC and GC are approaches to limit the complexity and difficulty of memory management. As such, I think it's very reasonable to compare them, because they're different approaches to the same underlying problem.

FWIW, as someone who was a Java programmer for over a decade before learning Objective C right after ARC came on the scene, I greatly prefer ARC over garbage collection. I find the things you have to remember to think about with both ARC and GC (e.g. circular references and unintentionally strongly reachable references) to be about the same cognitive load, but the deterministic, predictable behavior of ARC means you won't have to try to debug random GC hangs that only happen in prod under heavy load and the subsequent fiddling with a million GC options to get performance to be acceptable.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#175

Post by laser »

naaaaak wrote: post #161

Apple has a car project. Autopilot must be one of its core features. But Apple would not create a VP-level position for Autopilot or any one feature for any of their products (even if they it called something else for secrecy/generalization reasons). This move increases his compensation and clout. Post-Tesla, he'll only have VP or founder titles elsewhere, never anything lower-level (unless he gets his old job back).…

I thought Apple's car project was dead? Now autopilot is the one feature they're building?

http://www.motortrend.com/news/apple-car-dead-software-shift...

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#176

Post by Inconel »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #80
celticninja wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Elon Musk is what Steve Jobs wanted to be. Steve Jobs thought he was changing the world with the iPhone, and while it was new it wasn't world changing. What Elon Musk does is world changing.

Probably not a popular opinion, but I think Musk is overrated. The guy has a huge ego, just like Jobs had, and while he's putting it into a nice package, he's not the guy to come up with anything; electric cars, spacecraft etc. Yes, he might change the world if/once he gets to Mars, but most of his stuff is a marketing tech demo. Bell Labs changed the world. Tesla did not.

>but most of his stuff is a marketing tech demo.

Disclaimer: I work at SpaceX, albeit as a technician so I'm very far down the corporate ladder, but I feel that may be unduly harsh.

There can certainly be legitimate criticisms around Musk personally, and SpaceX/Tesla in regards to whether they are overhyped relative to competitors or whether they will succeed on delivering what they promise. With that being said, when a company delivers 70k+ cars in a year, even if this is just a tiny percentage of the overall new car market, or a company puts satellites into orbit, I think we've moved beyond "marketing tech demo" status.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#177

Post by solipsism »

Cyph0n wrote: post #151
stupidcar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commenter claims Musk hasn't achieved anything at all, other than give some tech demos. I'm perfectly entitled to ask what they've achieved themselves that puts them in a position to so casually demean what, by most people's standards, are quite considerable feats.

What OP has or has not achieved is irrelevant in my opinion. I think it's better form to just refute the criticism and leave OP out of it. But it's up to you of course.

In the meanwhile you've taken the entire conversation off course to serve as the politeness police.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#178

Post by jameskegel »

stupidcar wrote: post #145
Cyph0n wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you boast any such achievement in your own life? That was an unnecessary remark; the commenter never claimed that he/she has achieved more than Musk.

The commenter claims Musk hasn't achieved anything at all, other than give some tech demos. I'm perfectly entitled to ask what they've achieved themselves that puts them in a position to so casually demean what, by most people's standards, are quite considerable feats.

I'm not sure that OP's accomplishments are relevant in this case. You don't have to be above someone to point out mistakes. That is not to say I agree with OP, only that I disagree with your statement.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#179

Post by will_pseudonym »

naaaaak wrote: post #161

Apple has a car project. Autopilot must be one of its core features. But Apple would not create a VP-level position for Autopilot or any one feature for any of their products (even if they it called something else for secrecy/generalization reasons). This move increases his compensation and clout. Post-Tesla, he'll only have VP or founder titles elsewhere, never anything lower-level (unless he gets his old job back).…

> Working for someone with a vision other than "thin" must be a welcoming change.

This is so spot on. I would kill for a thicker phone with a less vibrant display that would last 2x as long on a single charge. They're pushing stuff that the consumer doesn't want (thinner/less battery volume, no headphone jack) in order to make money. It reminds me a lot of the TV industry pushing 3D TV's. I don't know a single person who has ever watched, let alone regularly, any 3D content on their 3D TV. It's a technology that few wanted but was pushed to drive sales.

Re: Welcome Chris Lattner

#180

Post by Inconel »

mtgx wrote: post #139
mrkd wrote: post #32

Elon Musk is the new Steve Jobs. He is an inspirational leader and talented people want to work with him. It appears it will be harder and harder to attract and keep talent at Apple with out a leader like Steve Jobs.

This is why I think Apple missed its chance to buy Tesla and make Elon Musk its CEO at the same time. I can't even imagine what Musk would do with Apple's $200 billion in cash. I think he would've been much more daring with that money than even Steve Jobs would've been. But I think Apple missed its shot, and the merger of Tesla and Solar City probably sealed that for good. Now Musk is probably already seeing a 10-20x…

I'd be curious what that level of money would do to the culture at SpaceX. I work here as a tech and I get the impression from top to bottom that a big part of the overall culture centers around doing things as inexpensively as possible, largely out of necessity. People here genuinely get excited when we find ways to shave off even small amounts of waste.

I'm not knowledgable enough about the psychological/sociological aspects of this but I wonder if it's possible to maintain that kind of culture when you have $200 billion sitting in the bank. It might lead to a kind of resource curse that some countries suffer from.

I wonder if there have been studies done on this at the corporate level.

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