[X4U] Tiger & 64-Bit Applications...

[DZ-Jay]

On Apr 15, 2005, at 05:43, Stroller wrote:

>
> On Apr 15, 2005, at 10:13 am, DZ-Jay wrote:
>> On Apr 14, 2005, at 13:02, Michael Winter wrote:
>>>
>>> IMO 64 bit only does two things. 1) Increases the amount of memory 
>>> that can be addressed and 2) makes it easier (and faster) to handle 
>>> data that does require more than 32 bits. Tiger does all that when 
>>> necessary.
>>
>> I read somewhere, from an Apple developer, that the internal graphics 
>> engine, math APIs, and things like that will use 64-bits -- you know, 
>> the bits that actually could use it -- but that the general 
>> applications that come with OSX (Mail, Safari, etc.) will not.
>
> This posting seems quite informative, although I have to confess I 
> don't understand all the implications:
> <http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=145810&cid=12212271>

Yes, that article is very informative, especially further down where 
someone replied with more detailed information as to what does 64bit 
*actually* means, in terms of OS and applications.

The problem, as I see it, is that most general users have bought into 
the marketing campaigns that more is always better, 64bits is twice as 
good as 32bits, 1.42MHz is faster than 1.25MHz (by virtue of clock 
speed alone), yadda yadda.  Increasing memory, bus/memory bandwidth, 
clock speed, or word bit-length, each one individually, is only part of 
the answer.  For overall performance increase a *lot* of other factors 
need to be considered, for instance, all those factors I mentioned 
before at the same time, plus -- and this is also key -- the way that 
developers take advantage of these features and code their 
applications.

What good is a 9-lane, completely straight, highway, when everybody on 
it drives a beat-up pinto?  And even if you gave high-performance cars 
to all drivers, what good would it do if they only know how to drive 
and handle a car at around 55 - 60 MPH?

The same with changing from a 32-bit environment to a 64-bit one.  
Apple has done their best to make the transition to the new platform as 
painless as possible, but it is a long term endeavor; developers need 
to eventually learn and get used to working with 64-bits, and maybe 
even discover a few tricks inherent in this environment that increases 
performance.  Apple has made most of the transition transparent, i.e. 
Tiger uses 64-bit behind the scenes as it needs it, without the 
developer having to actually code it into their applications.  Does 
this mean that Tiger is *not* 64-bits? No, it is.  Does this mean that 
Apple is trying to take advantage of their customers by not actually 
spending any effort in taking advantage of the features of the G5, 
while announcing it as 64-bits, just to make their customers upgrade?  
Not really.  Does this mean that Tiger is *absolutely* 
as-good-as-it-gets 64-bit ultimate OS code?  No.  Rather, I expect that 
eventually 64-bit development will become mainstream, and new ways of 
doing things -- new 64-bit ways that actually are better than the 
32-bit way -- will be engineered, and all applications, APIs, 
libraries, and core frameworks will be fully and entirely 64-bit.  But 
this will take time.  In the meantime, Tiger is a big improvement on 
Panther, as the G5 is on the G4.

	dZ.