The title sounds provocative, and it's based on this article that just impressed me. It's reflecting a lot of the angst I see floating around on blogs and the like. And it's got some very interesting responses to questions that people are raising. I'm really curious what my fellow tapped into the web computer enthusiasts think on the issue. Especially considering how many different things people around here do, and how many different levels and types of expertise we have.

And while I think a lot of the "multi cores will kill us" chatter is mindless hype, I think there's a bit of truth to some of it. This quote in particular stuck me.

Thirty years later, I’d say programmers aren’t thinking in terms of parallelism any more than they were back then. We have separate threads of execution, but they might as well be separate tasks - not parallel distributions of one algorithm.

Wired has this to say

The problem is that many software applications weren’t written for chips with multiple cores, and the hardware is advancing so fast that the software runs the risk of being left behind.
“You can imagine a scenario where people stop buying laptops and PCs because we can’t figure this out,” said David Patterson, a computer-architecture expert and computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Basically, that people will stop buying computers because they run faster than the software is capable of. I think anyone who's used Vista would say faster hardware is needed!

John Dvorak wrote

Why can’t operating systems simply dedicate extra cores to housekeeping chores and cool background tasks? It’s simple enough to work. Here are a few choice uses for core dedication. There are six of them, since we may see a six-core chip on the road ahead.

They do! All modern operating systems do. XP and 2000 do. OSX does. Linux does.

References

• A response to the article above
• Microsoft's roadmap to massively parallel computing.

Just read the article you were refering to i have to admit i havnt been reading up much about this and (because i dont have enough money [big aww everyone!] i am still on single core) i havnt looked into it much, but it seems obvious that the current os's can use multi-core hardware.

I personally think that the idea of the hardware being faster than software plain stupid. - like you said vista. I have it, yes it uses a little more system resources but in my opinion it still runs faster than XP did on this machine when i have many (mnay many many) programs running, because it appears to be able to manage it's processes and just simply works better. (i know thats controversal but i have yet to see anyone who has used it for a good few months deny its better than XP... anyway differant discussion)

But back on point, the more the hardware can do the more software we will use, it doesnt matter how much a individual thing uses if you get me.

If for instance you were on a system which could only handle having your email app open one browser and msn you would just shut one down when you need something else, but when the hardwares is faster it means you simply open more. you have no reason to keep shutting down outlook, or your browser when your not using them.

so you can happily have 20-30 apps/programs running in the background which may or may not be doing something for you without issue and it becomes the norm - you EXPECT the systems to be able to do it.

Just in the past when bill gates expected home users to only need 64mbs! ><

That was a bit waffly but hopefully you got my meaning.

Dan

I think that the hardware innovations are far faster than the software, it would take the software at least a few years to catch up to really utilize the advantages of what the hardware innovations like multi cores brings us.

This has already happened honestly. Like windows 95 programs you can still use on XP! They just run a mile a second and you really can't follow them.. plus they are outdated now of course. Programmers stopped using program timing and started relying on computer timing, to judge when things should happen. This screws up a lot of things and have been for years.

Just my 2 cents.

dogmeister
When ever I read about some big technology prediction I always think about a great book I've read called Future Hype. Has anyone read it? Basically all these big announcements of world changing innovations are bs. They are just hype. Read the book quite a while ago but basically don't worry about it.

Recommend the book to everyone. Really interesting.

Hey. How to get this one? Can you please share such information with us?

Try a shop which sells computers

I've been working/running on a Intel Core 2 Quad since earlier last year as my main machine, i've noticed the difference as I tend to run several large different programs at a time. At the moment i've got 2 virtual Pc's running, 2 instances of Visual Studio 2005 with large solutions, general standard stuff and its flying along merrily.

Even though these programs are not multithreaded, it means they can run simultaniously which is great as im running a test app on my main pc, which is calling the two virtual servers and delivering instantanious response.

In terms of developing for multiple cores, the problems come when you have to target a range of users, how much would you like it for example if I released a new version of Call of Duty and said you had to have a Quad core processor to run it?

It is a balancing act, the game engine im currently working on will use multithreading across multiple core's (graphics run on one, game logic another, in game communication on another) however I do rely on Windows to distribute these tasks across the different cores efficiently.

Threading has always been a difficult thing to do with Windows, even when the .Net Framework came out it was a nightmare, Microsoft's behavour is to drop/destroy a thread at the first error rather then allowing you the chance to debug it. I spent months bulletproofing a single task.