erik quanstrom wrote: > On Thu Nov 15 18:14:18 EST 2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> this question also came up in bay area plan9 meeting. would be nice to >> know the status. i think unix adopted 32-bit earlier than other OSes. >> but for 64-bit, others have gone ahead. >> > > 64 bits is neither here nor there in a vaccuum. you want 64 bits if > a) you need more than 4GB of memory, or > a) those extra registers and direct vlong really matter for performance. > otherwise it's just a lot of extra zeros.
Let's not commit a false alternatives fallacy here.... For example, the very large virtual address space of 64bit is useful, even without 4 GB of RAM. It allows all sorts of madnesses, such as memory mapping petabyte sized devices, or other programmatic conveniences such as large sparse vectors. Rob
