Yet these "lower-level" APIs, DX12 and Vulcan, often don't significantly out perform DX11, and in many cases DX11 performs better. I put lower-level in quotes because those APIs bake assumptions about the hardware into their API which shouldn't be there to begin with because they frequently prevent drivers from getting the most out of the hardware.
> I use OG vim mainly because I perceive it as more performant.
I feel the same way. I am not sure what performance comparisons have been made between the two projects, but I stick with vanilla vim (gVim typically) over vanilla nvim due to the responsiveness.
I find it sad that this paper mentions two valid critiques of OOP[0][1], yet makes no effort to engage with their specific criticisms. Also, citing Microsoft's COM object system as _the_ example of OOP's great success must mean that the authors are simply ignorant to how bad COM is and why Microsft has ceased anything beyond legacy support for it.
Ultimately, I find the thesis of the paper fundamentally wrong for presuming that OOP is somehow more beneficial than other approaches to dynamic dispatch. Moreover, the use of interfaces in thr paper are more restrictive to code structure, and in turn, are more likely hurt code reuse than help it.
Interfaces are an inherently weaker form of the age old Operation Code and data packet paradigm. Take the Widget interface the paper gives as an example (page 5). This interface has now been set in stone. Any additions that would be useful for the widget interface, say OnClick(), will require a breaking change. This is because all code using the old interface will have to be updated and recompiled to satisfy the new interface requirements (even if a widget won't functionally change from using said new interface). Meanwhile for code using op codes, a new op code value is defined and nothing in the old code is required to change. (This assumes that this old code will perform a no operation for the new opcode, which historically has been the case for systems that use this method).
In fact, Win32 did exactly this opcode and data packet protocol for its message loop to great long term success. They have regularly extended their existing code without breaking backwards compatibility of older versions. The longevity of code in typical OO systems pales in comparison.
> but critically, it needs to adapt to its users – to people!
In principle, I want this to be true. But, in practice, I think products change because the teams that built a product need to justify their continued existence within a corporation. Slack's last few rounds of UI changes for instance, has been a net negative for me, the user. Why can't I split several channels in the same window anymore? Why did they add a thick vertical toolbar that I don't use and can't remove? Not for my benefit, that's for sure.
p.s. Kelley not Kelly is the correct spelling of his name.
The issue with those books is that they don't have any concrete data that affirms that they are worth following. And, in fact, that style of code is largely to blame for why modern software feels so sluggish. They often reduce performance by 10x if not 100x or worse. I like this video on the topic for reasons not to follow SOLID principles[0]. Muratori also has an excellent talk on writing APIs that are flexible and performant[1]. As for books on understanding the hardware performance, Computer Systems: a Programmer's Perspective, is the best example (not the international edition though, according to the author's recommendation).
I'm not aware of any architecture books recommended by anyone that cares about performance unfortunately. Most high performance software is written iteratively, meaning they aren't assuming a code structure from the start. Andreas Fredriksson, a lead engine programmer at Insomniac Games, has an excellent quote on how he writes high performance software[2]:
> Work backwards from hard constraints and requirements to guide your design. Don’t fall into the trap of designing from a fluffy API frontend before you’ve worked out how the thing will handle a worst case. Don’t be afraid to sketch stuff in while you’re proving out the approach.
> The value is what you learn, never the code. Hack it and then delete the code and implement “clean” or whatever you need. But never start there, it gets in the way of real engineering.
> As an industry we spend millions on APIs, documentation and abstraction wrapping a thing that isn’t very good to start with. Make the thing good first, then worry about fluff.
Casey Muratori also has written blogs about his programming style[3]. (He also runs a great course about performance at computerenhance.com). Abner Coimbre has a great article on how NASA approaches writing software[4]. Of course, there is also Mike Acton's famous CppCon talk about Data-Oriented Design[5].
The standard advice usually boils down to this: focus on the problem you have to solve, and be aware how damaging solving the wrong problem can be. It's a good idea to focus on what data your program receives and focusing on handling worst cases.
Since it is difficult to tell who is worth listening to, I suggest always investigating what actual software the person speaking has written. Those that write real time software or software that must not fail under any condition tend to speak very differently about typical industry practices for good reason.
For those not familiar with the author, this is Daniel Lemire, a high performance software expert. He has done lots of work about squeezing as much performance out of a CPU as possible; see his work on SIMD JSON parsing[0]. I imagine he wrote this out of frustration for the software industry's seeming inability to identify who actual experts are in the field. It doesn't take much work to see how much books like Design Patterns and Clean Code have negatively shaped the industry.
> I'm not sure why this is particularly needed and it isn't really in the novel...
I know saying this is sacrilegious to some sci-fi fans, but I think that the novel, Dune, could do with improvement. Neither the book nor the movie spend enough time fleshing out the details of their characters, which in my opinion robs both of them their ability to connect more deeply with the audience. The scene where Duke Leto explains to Paul that they will require desert power to rule Arrakis, for instance, did not have to be set such that the characters were alone on an empty cliff above the shoreline. There could have been a city full of culture upon this shoreline with great boat yards and planes over the sea to show the audience the empire that they are leaving behind on Caladan. I want both the novel and the movie to flesh out the details which make the audience engage with the fact that Caladan is a comparative paradise to the harsh, prison-like planet called Arrakis. It would suck to be forced to leave behind all the great work that the Atreides' forefathers put into Caladan. But, ultimately, both the film and the novel fail to fully engage their audience with these facts since they don't flesh out the details about the environment and people that the Atreides rule. At least that is my opinion.
There are a number of things I'd like to change or improve upon if I had the chance to edit Dune (novel or film): the story's allusions to the Cold War fight for oil in the middle east; the poor decision making by the Harkonnens; Dr. Yueh's murder of Duke Leto etc. But I don't want to ramble on too much. My point is that I think the film could have improved upon the novel in a number of places, instead of following the novel to its detriment.
> There's no character development to speak of, the plot is secondary, and visual spectacle is placed front and center.
I totally agree with this take, but I think Dennis' directing/writing is full of 'Telling' instead of 'Showing', not that he took "Show Don't Tell" to the extreme. The entire movie is full of instances where the audience is told aspects of the characters/world, but isn't shown them in the first Dune movie:
- We are told the Atreides ruled Caladan, but at no point is the audience shown who the Atreides' subjects are, or how their subjects feel about the Atreides. The only shots the film has on Caladan are beautiful yet empty areas of the Scottish Highlands. Where are the people they rule over? What does their way of life look like? None of this is shown, but it should have been.
- On Arrakis, we are only ever told how strong and powerful the Fremen are from characters like Duncan Idaho. In fact, the only time we get to see the Fremen fight is at the end of the movie when Paul, the child _who has never been in a life or death fight before_, makes a fool of a supposedly strong Fremen fighter! Dennis clearly wants the audience to perceive the Fremen as strong, yet he fails to illustrate their strength on screen. I understand that Dennis wants Paul to be seen as powerful too, but the resulting scene undercuts everything that the movie has told us about the Fremen's fighting ability.
If it isn't already clear, I don't think Dennis Villenueve is a particularly good film maker (though this is not to call him a bad one). He likes to have large empty scenery shots which are almost monochrome. I find that it makes his imagery striking but, ultimately, boring. For instance, his shots in Bladerunner 2049 mostly depict an empty wasteland that, though striking in its scale, doesn't drive one's imagination. The original Bladerunner's shots are so cluttered with detail and color that it fills every location with a unique character. This is why I think Bladerunner inspired so much other media after it; the audience's imagination can't help but linger on the sets and one off characters of the original film.
> When school districts get rid of advanced offerings in a bid to reduce racial inequality, they end up doing to opposite of what they claim to intend. While wealthier families can move to better school districts or enroll their children in private schools, smart—yet poor—kids end up getting stuck in "equitable" classrooms that leave them under-stimulated and ignored.
I hope the education system pushes for more students in under represented groups to partake in advanced offerings instead of getting rid of them. In my ideal, the school system should strive to help all students push their intellectual ability. Moreover, school sports and extracurriculars are great places to push for greater diversity since they tend to lack under represented groups.
This course is fantastic. For anyone that wants a campanion book to go along with it, Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective is a great book to go alongside it. (Just don't get the international edition per the author's recommendation).
This course is excellent and I cannot recommend it to OP highly enough. A great book to go with it is Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective (CSAPP).
> - The lack of first class interfaces/traits/typeclasses is not my favorite. The currently suggested alternatives are so un-ergonomic I'd almost call them hostile.
Personally, I don't see this as a problem. I like implementing an interface in Zig the same way I implement one in C -- I use a function pointer that takes a packet that defines the operation to execute with that packet data. Zig's exhaustive switch statements make these even better to work with.
Here is some pseudocode to illustrate what I mean: