Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment x32 flopped (Score 2) 23

The larger address space can be useful in some applications

Such as high-resolution image editing and high-definition video editing. Compared to a web browser, these aren't quite as amenable to splitting an application into numerous "content processes," each with their own separate 2 GB RAM.

but most applications are already bloated and having bigger pointers hasn't improved matters for this bloat problem.

For a while, Linux supported an x86-64 ABI called "x32" that limits each process's address space to 2 GB so that more pointers will fit in the processor's data cache. It didn't become popular, in part because of a need to load three versions of the system libraries: 32-bit i686, x86-64, and "x32". In addition, porting x86-64 applications to use less pointer-heavy containers gave most of the cache advantage that "x32" would have provided. This includes switching from linked lists to gap buffers (or other dynamic arrays), from B-trees to T-trees, or from pointers to indices in a pool. Rust in particular has encouraged use of appropriately sized indices as a workaround for the borrow checker.

For systems that want to access more than 2GB-4GB of physical RAM, there has long been PAE/PSE-36 that permit mapping 64GB physical address space to a 32-bit virtual space.

There's a widespread misconception that a 32-bit operating system is limited to 3 GB of physical RAM. I think this comes from Microsoft's practice of requiring drivers for 32-bit Windows Server to support PAE as a condition for certification, but not drivers for 32-bit Windows desktop. I seem to remember 32-bit desktop Linux being more PAE-friendly. PAE and content processes are how Firefox for 32-bit Linux managed to hang on this long.

Comment Re: Cloud computing is one the dumbest ideas ever. (Score 1) 82

So the service worker installs the entire Grab site to you phone? Grab handles food delivery, grocery delivery, package delivery, ride sharing, financial services, etc.. That seem extremely inefficient to load every single function to your phone just because you visited their website.

Each function could be loaded the first time the user uses it. The device has to be online to query what is in stock at any given moment anyway. And I'd be interested in others' speculation about why the client side of the most widely used functions can't all fit in (say) 5 MB, which is twice the size of Doom.

You suggested a solution that Grab, Doordash, Uber Eats, Instacart, Favor, Grubhub, Postmates, etc. do not use. I pointed out maybe these companies know way more about their needs and solutions than you. Do you accept that?

I accept that, adding a clarification that I suggested the solution for the purpose of asking other people what these companies might know that I don't.

Comment Re: Cloud computing is one the dumbest ideas ever. (Score 1) 82

And you have not considered to enter offline-first, the service worker API has to load?

The first time you add a website to your home screen, it installs the website's service worker. You have to use the Internet for that, just as you have to use the Internet to download an application from Apple's App Store.

Again, Grab has been doing this for 12 years.

And I'm curious about what the blockers for even a partial PWA implementation have been during each of these 12 years.

PWA is not new and they have chosen native apps.

All I've been asking is what features of Grab combined with missing features of PWA likely led to their continuing to choose native apps.

But most of us did not assume to know better than Grab unlike you.

I don't see where I "assume[d] to know better than Grab".

Comment Re:With Science (Score 1) 93

Science? Really? There's a lot of soft-brained, unscientific and technophilic pseudo-religion in the article.

Let's work with the argument's load-bearing phrase, "exploration is an intrinsic part of the human spirit."

There are so many things to criticise in that single statement of bias. Suffice it to say there's a good case to be made that "provincial domesticity and tribalism are prevalent inherited traits in humans", without emotional appeals to a "spirit" not in evidence.

Comment Reflections on Rusting Trust (Score 1) 70

The main reason that people worried about a spec in the past was to avoid vendor lock-in. An implementation which is available under a public license is a good solution to that problem also.

Even apart from costs associated with proprietary software, the other reason to avoid vendor lock-in is to avoid self-propagating backdoors in the compiler. Ken Thompson described how to make such a backdoor with C in his 1983 "Reflections on Trusting Trust" speech. David A. Wheeler described "diverse double-compiling", a defense against compiler backdoors that relies on the existence of independent implementations of a language. Stable Rust doesn't have that because it's such a moving target, with widely used programs relying on language and library features less than half a year old.

See also "Reflections on Rusting Trust" by Manish Goregaokar

Comment Re:Gods I hate babies (Score 4, Interesting) 90

Probably better to edit out genetic defects after birth than trying to eliminate them completely from the genome. Sometimes we have unfavorable traits that played a role in our survival in the past. Getting rid of them entirely may have undesirable future consequences.

Slashdot Top Deals

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald

Working...