With the American holiday of Thanksgiving almost here, I have been thinking of the many things I’m thankful for. I realized how thankful I am for the constant state of change in the computer industry. Part of that change is because of Moore’s Law and part of it is due to general innovation of how to take advantage of additional processing power. The consequences are that there are always new (and usually better) products out there. I love the opportunity both to play with the latest and greatest products (like my new Kindle Fire) and to use them to be more productive and do things I was not able to do previously. I genuinely look forward to when it is time to upgrade to a new computer.
A consequence of constant innovation is that it’s often important to understand how much faster new products are than their predecessors. I certainly don’t feel like going to the hassle of moving to a new computer for 10 percent more performance. But, when it is twice as fast, I have trouble resisting. And, it is important to be able to decide which of two products offers either the most performance or the best performance for the dollar. That, of course, is where benchmarks like HDXPRT come in.
Someday, the constraints of physics may put an end to Moore’s Law. When that happens, computers will be more like cars. Instead of the new model being twice or ten times as fast as your old one, it will be just a little faster, but have a really cool paint job and boss fins on it. That is not a day I look forward to! Not only will the computer industry be much less interesting, but there won’t be much need for benchmarks. I am thankful for the constant change in computers!
And, I’m thankful for all of you in the Development Community for your help in defining, developing, testing, and promoting HDXPRT. Now, before the tryptophan kicks in, please send us your responses to the RFC!
Bill
