Re: [Linux-ia64] Re: Itanium gets supercomputing software

[Duraid Madina <duraid@octopus.com.au>]

I guess I was being a bit subtle.

I'm well aware there are things you can do with a simulator that you 
can't do with hardware. Like test your code against what's supposed to 
happen, not what actually happens. ;)

My point wasn't that software simulators are useless, but that software 
simulators _should_ be useless **4 years** (!!) after the public 
availability of hardware.

When I said:
 > I put it to you that software is easier to develop on hardware.

I meant that at this late stage, one would expect that people would be 
writing software, on their hardware. And not a whole lot else, all 
things considered. Do you see x86 linux people using simulators? Once in 
a blue moon, perhaps. Does anyone doubt that the x86-64 port will mature 
a heck of a lot faster than linux-ia64 has? One doesn't need to think 
for very long to realise why this might be.

Don't get me wrong, I think Linus was being a complete idiot for his 
comments against IA64 and for x86-64, but insofar as keeping hardware 
pricing so high that Joe K. Hacker can't even dream of affording it is 
"good business" on Intel/HP's part, it's an even better way of keeping 
your kernel untested.

	Duraid

David Kågedal wrote:
> Exactly.  There are a lot of things that you can do with a simulator
> that you can't do with hardware.  Developing software before hardware
> is available is just one of them.  (plug mode on) That's why we sell
> simulators for most major current CPU architectures.  Including IA64.