From: lex@cc.gatech.edu   
      
   rk  writes:   
      
   > Lex Spoon wrote:   
   >   
   >> A common reason voiced is that the CPU usage is too much.  But this is   
   >> bogus, IMO.  CPU efficiency is the "launch mass" for computer people.   
   >> Fast CPU's are extremely cheap compared to the cost of a single   
   >> programmer's salary, and thus economically you should splurge on the   
   >> CPU's.  The days are long gone when companies have *one* computer plus   
   >> a swarm of programmers hovering around it.   
   >   
   > But on many spacecraft, the cost of an extra computer is "expensive" and it's   
   > worth some effort for the designers to spend some effort to eliminate   
   > computers that aren't needed.   
      
   I wasn't proposing to use more computers, but faster ones.   
      
   This example was supposed to be illustrative.  A few decades ago,   
   computers were expensive compared to programmers, and you tended to   
   have lots of programmers hovering around each computer.  Try to   
   picture that in a modern office -- it's hard, isn't it!  Nowadays it's   
   the other way around, with computers all over the place.  Nowadays CPU   
   time is cheap compared to programmer time, and so the appropriate   
   design strategy is different: make things easy on the programmers, in   
   order to conserve your most valuable resource.   
      
      
      
   -Lex   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)