New Release

Tomaž Borštnar tomaz.borstnar at over.net
Thu Apr 14 14:39:59 PDT 2005


Danial Thom wrote:

I guess I'm not sure I want to use 64-bit,
we have to go towards 64bit in order to be 32-bit safe :)

When you start recompiling apps to run natively 64bit you encounter all 
kind of bugs where were hidden before.

If it looks like a duck it might not a duck after all.

particularly if its going to be slower than
32-bit mode. With larger structures, pointers,
etc, if stuff starts not fitting in the cache
then you'll lose more than you gain. So using the
extra registers would improve performance without
having all of the issues.
Software should use hardware features even if current hardware is no 
there today - literally. Remember X Window System? In 1985 we did not 
have 2D/3D accelerators in most machines. I was lucky to have access to 
one such machine - but cost was 20k USD then :) But nevertheless they 
prepared the software for the future hardware!

 Development is so fast that in few years you will need to be extra 
carefully not to buy new 64-bit ready machine if you are afraid of 64bits :)

Tomaž





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