The $100 laptop

[FoulDragon at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/9/2005 5:40:13 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
plug-discuss at stcaz.net writes:

>With a modern O/S, like Linux, these are no longer concerns for the 
application developer.  >Consider that we now see a vast array of applications written 
for Linux that run just fine on >systems ranging from an old 486, to a 64-bit 
AMD, to a hyper-threading, multi-core, multi->processor, NUMA system, and you 
realize just how irrelevant the level-platform concept >has become.

Well, they may *run* technically, but I think that most of us will agree, 
Quake III plays better on that Athlon 64 than it does on a 486.

You can hide the hardware from the programmer, but you can't hide its 
performance from the user.

If a later generation of the $100 laptop comes into circulation, you'll see a 
lot of annoyed people when their friends get one of the new ones and it runs 
the tasks which strain theirs more easily.  And even more annoyed people when 
people start coding assuming that level of performance is available.

Yes, hard-coded delay loops and other similar thinking is bad.  But it 
doesn't prevent it from happening.  It will always be tempting to do it that way 
too, if you have fixed hardware.  It's easier.