Re: [TUHS] PDP-11 legacy, C, and modern architectures

[Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 06:29:54PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 05:03:17PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> > 
> > Tens of thousands of machines is a lot more than one. I think the
> > point stands. This is the age of distributed and parallel systems.
> 
> This is the age of distributed systems, yes.  I'm not so sure about
> "parallel".  And the point remains that for many problems, you need
> fewer strong cores, and a crapton of weak cores is not as useful.

As usual, Ted gets it.

> You're conflating "distributed" and "parllel" computing, and they are
> really quite different.

Precisely (and well put Ted!)

Perry, please take this in the spirit in which is intended, but you're
arguing with people who have been around the block (there are people
on this list that have 5 decades of going around the block - looking at
you Ken).  I designed the first clustered product at Sun, I was the 4th
guy at google (working on clusters there), Ted is a Linux old timer,
Clem goes back in Unix farther than I do, Ken did much of Unix, etc.
There are a ton of people on this list that make me look like a nobody,
you want to be careful in that crowd.

This is a really poor place for a younger person to come in and make
loud points, that is frowned upon.  It's a fantastic place for a younger
person to come in and learn.  All of us old farts want to pass on what
we know and will gladly do so.  But some of us old farts, like me, are
really tired of arguing with people that don't see the whole picture.
This is not the place to bring the whole picture into focus for you,
sorry.  If you want to argue about stuff I'll eventually go away and so
will other old farts.

I kinda think you don't want to chase me away or other old farts away,
this is a place where we (mostly) talk about Unix history and if the
old farts go away, so does the history.

I'm not saying you can't voice your opinion and argue all you want, just
saying this might not be the list for that.  But that's just my view,
Warren will step in if he needs to.

Cheers and welcome,

--lm