I'm not claiming that Windows has all the answers for all possible goals. What I am pointing out is that in the case of a quite non-trivial application there has been remarkable stability that has been missing from both Mac and Linux environments. I haven't seen Microsoft being given credit for this, and it's not unimportant. Clearly someone at Microsoft has thought it important that applications continue to work.
Concerning graphics, with each new release of Ubuntu I find it easy or difficult to install a proprietary graphics driver without which even simple 3D can fail. As for the Mac, a couple years ago World of Warcraft was broken on the Macbook Pro for something like a year and a half because the graphics driver had been tweaked to cater to some iProgram, and there was no way to upgrade the driver, given the closed Mac environment. What I'm objecting to is the facile assumption in computer-savvy circles that "obviously" Windows and Microsoft are hopeless (roll the eyes). That's not the whole story. Bruce On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 11:22 PM, Marcus G. Daniels <[email protected]>wrote: > On 2/7/13 10:54 PM, Bruce Sherwood wrote: > >> To repeat, Windows for my 3D graphics development purposes has been far >> more stable than either Mac or Ubuntu Linux. >> > Windows is the biggest market for gamers. 3D innovation has historically > always been first on WIndows. > If all you want a computer to do is a fixed set of 2d and 3d graphics > APIs, then, sure, use Windows. But performance and stability are only two > dimensions. > > I care much more about flexibility than stability or graphics performance. > For example, I want to use GPUs for accelerated computation. It is > inappropriate in my situation to code using unportable (CUDA) or crudely > simple APIs like OpenCL. That's no way to write complex, long-lived, > maintainable software. It could be a way to write simple, static, > scientific codes that perform on particular cards, if that's all you need > to do. I want the possibility of *some* acceleration over generations of > cards, not peak performance for one generation. > > AMD GPUs on Linux now have the driver bits (in Mesa, a free OpenGL) and > compiler bits in LLVM (a free compiler). Together there's now the > possibility of integrating real compilers with accelerator technology. On > Windows, this kind of integration and experimentation is not possible. > > Now fast forward to the day this all just works. Someone writes a code > using these compiler tools, but, oops there's a strange anomaly in a > particular calculation. How do you fix it? Get your favorite bloggers > to complain in a public setting? No thanks, I want direct control. > That means source code. > > Marcus > > > ==============================**============================== > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe > http://redfish.com/mailman/**listinfo/friam_redfish.com<http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> >
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