Clif Collins at CollinsSoftware made a video about the state of hardware and software development

https://x.com/RichardKCollin2/status/1837598419034296337

Clif Collins at CollinsSoftware made a video about the state of hardware and software development

All of these computer languages from the past are finite and they have very strict rules that cannot be varied. Maybe I can just say that any finite language can be optimized, or it cannot. Usually it is not that the whole language can be optimized, just parts. Fortran Algol Basic Pascal C (many dialects) Assembler (many dialects),  machine code, etc etc etc. They implement on mostly static hardware, and specific functions can be optimized. The developers will say it is flexible but the end users have no real say, no real access to what machines can do.

Usually things like floating point calculations are exact to the last bit. But Clif can tell you stories where it is not. All the hardware manufacturers today cannot make a core to handle all the devices and put it in hardware. All the operating systems makers today cannot make a core so that all applications (more and more that also talk to other applications over the Internet or networks) have secure global communication.

This rather slippery state of things is because so many groups worked independently and not systemically to make hardware, software, operating systems, devices, protocol and rules – to benefit the individual and very very small groups (compared to 8.2 Billion humans). I see them as playing little games, when much more serious things are happening.

I have talked to Clif about it many times. But he has been writing optimized code for decades. He laughs at “big data” because it is usually a very common algorithm or methods that most everyone of his generation knows, and two generations later all that has been forgotten.

Clif made a video today. I have not watched it all. I am pretty sick today, so taking a break from global issues, and Internet issues and endless useless arguments between AI competitors. I am working on quantum and gravitational noise statistics, something that always relaxes me. I am probably going to abandon the Internet Foundation one day and just look at noise from the earth, solar system, our galaxy, our universe. Or a candle flame, a drop of water, electrons and photon and gravitons. Most anything is more interesting than talking heads and endless debates over products that people are pushing.

Ciff’s video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_BBqTkw4ug
Clif’s October Newsletter: https://collinssoftware.com/_HOME.htm?16./$public/newsletters/2024_oct.htm

Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation