From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <433DFDEC.9040301@lanl.gov> Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 21:09:32 -0600 From: Ronald G Minnich User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20050317) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Subject: Re: [9fans] 64-Bit programming model. References: <32a656c20509300431j6ab02b7cm7512019149d45a59@mail.gmail.com> <32a656c20509301427v79705106ta3c169660f5d59b6@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: 92c91c86-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 Jim McKie wrote: > > ... are best served if there is a single choice widespread in the > > emerging 64-bit systems. This removes a source of subtle errors in > > porting to a 64-bit environment, and encourages more rapid > > exploitation of the technology options. > > I think that's backwards, you get sloppy in a monoculture. yeah, good point. We kept our alphas alive here for a long time for one reason: to make sure they kept us honest. For one thing, they would really complain about bad alighment. Pentiums are way too kind when you do something stupid like misalign a long or vlong. I was sad when it came time to turn them off. It's too easy to be stupid with just one architecture. ron