Re: [Algorithms] General purpose task parallel threading approach

[Tony C. <to...@mi...>]

I think you guys are getting tied up in an argument about semantics.

The real point here, IMHO, is that software development is a *tradeoff*. There are many things we'd like in any piece of software:

- Good performance (both in time and space)
- Robustness
- Maintainability
- Shipped on time
- Shipped on budget
- Features
- Interoperability
- Testability
- Portability
- Reusability (perhaps this means being more rather than less general)
- And many others.

Clearly, holding all other variables equals, it's better to have more of these good things than less. But you don't get to hold the other variables equal - you're always trading off things against each other. Would I like any piece of code I write to be more general purpose and more reusable? Sure, but (a) do I even know that how to achieve that goal, and (b) am I willing to trade off something else to get it? Maybe not. Perhaps almost always not.

- Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: chr...@pl... [mailto:chr...@pl...] 
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 11:14 AM
To: Game Development Algorithms
Subject: Re: [Algorithms] General purpose task parallel threading approach

> "Other than classroom examples, software is NOT written through
> composition of 'general components'. And even in the small subset
> of software writing where your statement may hold true, writing
> those components was a very small amount of work of the total."
>
> No, every piece of software in a modern language is written through
> composition of "general components", from the machine code op-codes,
> up to the language constructs they come from, up to the libraries,
> patterns and algorithms they're constructed with.

The fact that you have to rely on labelling assembly instructions
and for-loops as "general components" to provide support for your
initial statement shows how weak your statement was.


Christer Ericson, Director of Tools and Technology
Sony Computer Entertainment, Santa Monica


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