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Article about Moore's Law slowing down

http://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=417
    
The parts about a need for reduced software bloat are particularly relevant to this community.

posted by:   Nick     27-Dec-2015/22:02:09-8:00



The arguments on Reddit are helpful at clarifying perspective about this (old) topic:
    
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3ygrfo/moores_law_hits_the_roof_agners_cpu_blog/

posted by:   Nick     28-Dec-2015/0:31:34-8:00



These were interesting:
    
"I've coded professionaly in c sharp, python and javascript, and I would KILL for browsers to support all of them instead of just JS."
    
"JavaScript has plenty of flaws, but I would really like some sane scripting language..."
    
"Now hopefully we can start writing software that is efficient..."
    
"Take a look at the old Commodore 128 and Amiga and what was done with those machines. If you were to use modern HW as effectively and efficiently as those were used, things would seem radically different."
    
"The software industry has to cut down on the resource-hungry development tools and multilayer software..."
    
I wonder if R3 will have any more success than R2 without some sort of "evangelist."

posted by:   Steven White     28-Dec-2015/9:53:31-8:00



Unfortunately, I think most developers are coming from the C++/Java world and are complaining about how *dynamic* JavaScript is. Most of them want support for a client-side language which is a lot *less* like Rebol (which is even more dynamic than JavaScript).
    
As always, the driving principle for new languages** does not seem to be simplicity. It's mainly incremental or niche improvements to relatively awful languages. :) Raw speed and scalability still rule the day.
    
**(Go, Rust, Swift, Elixir, functional JVM languages, etc.)
    
I don't think rebol needs an evangelist, but it certainly needs to be able to win over converts based solely on its objective merits.
    
I look at all of the horrible layers of languages being used "in the cloud" (AWS, Google App Engine, Heroku/SalesForce) and wonder how it's possible that rebol hasn't found a smart niche in some of these places.

posted by:   Edoc     28-Dec-2015/12:42:10-8:00



I don't think that Moore's law will slow down much. The reason is they can add more cores and eventually they will link those cores optically. The electrical interconnects between cores, devices are a huge bottleneck. Maybe "THE" bottleneck. A lot of people are working on this as they, obviously, can see the same problems I can easily see. It will not be long before these problems are solved.
    
I think one reason Rebol hasn't caught on is it's so deep. Yes a lot of simple stuff is easy but some of the concepts you have to really think about. Most other programming languages don't have a deep a thought behind them. They "seem" easier to get started and after people use them a while they get stuck and it becomes difficult to see any other way.

posted by:   Sam     9-Jan-2016/12:30-8:00