the fact that Kuang threw a spotlight on erlang was enlightening, and I don't know enough about the circumstances of smalltalk and other OO languages to completely discount that there isn't a multiprocessor relevance. Isn't it true that many unix reentrant-safe functions depend on passing a pointer to a client memory structure from the calling code context, and who knows what kind of black magic goes behind in the OS in kernel mode in servicing some of those functions . (even when trying to read the intel systems programming book 3, manual chapter 7, whilst trying to work out if it is possible to understand the linux source regarding spin locks ).
On Sat, 2007-02-24 at 11:04 +1100, Andrew Patterson wrote: > > rather than by the value itself. This is said to be more efficient > > programming and memory wise - are you saying that due to the extra > > lookup step from pointer to variable that it slows the processor? > > It is more efficient - its also the only practical way of doing > things on any data artifacts that are too big to fit in a register > (i.e. anything that is not an integer or a double). Some languages > might optimize string manipulation for extremely small strings > that can fit in a register, but as its not at all the normal usage > of strings (i.e. even short error message strings would be too > big for a register), I doubt most languages would bother.. > > I don't know why OO, Erlang or call by reference really > have anything to do with the limits of multiprocessor > systems. Syan is right that the most in most EMR > systems it is the disk or network latency that will be > killing you, and hence adding extra cpu's won't likely > make the performance for one user much better. Extra > cpu's does allow the simultaneous user load to be > scaled up (i.e. going from 3 doctors > simultaneously with 1 cpu to 5 or 6 concurrent > users with 2 cpu's). > > I can't help out with the initial query which was whether > for _licensing_ purposes, a dual core is classified as > multiprocessor. > > If I was marking Kuang for a computer architecture exam > he'd be hovering at the 3/10 mark at the moment so take > what he says with a grain of salt.. > > Andrew > _______________________________________________ > Gpcg_talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk > _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
