Let's Push Things Forward: Thoughts on David Patterson and Lex Fridman

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Thoughts on David Patterson and Lex Fridman

I was watching the fascinating Lex Fridman discussion with David Patterson and found it very stimulating. It really made me think about the nature of computer science as a whole in a way that I haven't for a while. David Patterson is just so clear when he speaks about things that it makes you consider the basic nature of the endeavor. It reminded me of so many things I used to think about more frequently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naed4C4hfAg

Some random notes or ideas that occured or recurred to me. Not necessarily in the discussion, but where my mind went...

The concept of layers of abstraction in computer science is simply fascinating. It is really possible to keep diving down deeper. It reminded me of when I was in my first electronics class and I was asking about how AND and OR logic gates worked. That wasn't really the point of the class, it was more about figuring out how to assemble those parts to make an adder or do something useful. The teacher didn't even really know or understand my question (or why I was slowing down the class by asking it). Some other student volunteered that were must be some kind of thing inside of the gate that would close or open based on the total voltage. It took me a while to realize this word I had heard so many times, transistor, was really how these were made.
I was then drifting to thinking about the intersection between philosophy and computer science at that most basic level. Not only are the logic gates abstractions for the transistors used to create them, the gates themselves are assembled into things like adders, that compose arithmetic operations from boolean logic operations. This ties to (analytic) philosophy a bit, when you think about how Frege was talking about Peano's axioms, and Russell and Whitehead trying to derive mathematics from logic. It took me back to a semester when I studying Wittgenstein and Computer Architecture (two separate classes) and kept sliding to how Frege's types and type systems in programming languages are similar. I wonder what kind of programming language Wittgenstein would have created- maybe it would have a been a game...
Of course, compilers themselves are a form of translation from one language to another. That's always interesting to think about. I really didn't quite grasp how Intel x86 architecture translates from CISC to RISC in the chip, just in time.
The idea of compilers then got me thinking about the idea of interfaces as mediating between layers of abstraction. The layer of abstraction can be thought of as an interface. It defines how to interact with that layer, but provides this additional opaque box capability of being able to swap out the implementation without changing the other layers.
Some more prosaic thoughts on the idea of the best technology not always being the market winner. How much I hated Elasticsearch from a pure attitude and marketing perspective, their deceptive ways How I felt vindicated when they went away from open source. How much I hate their current market position and hope AWS crushes them.
Just the discussion of how ARM has so effectively pursued RISC, and how Apple is making the software stack integrated with the hardware so effectively, I wonder when there will be a true open architecture phone with mass adoption that can compete. Amazing that Apple is moving to this for their desktop operating system. It seems crazy, but the possibilities are huge.
Finally, the chat on mlperf was so interesting. I didn't realize Nervana had refused to release their mlperf scores prior to the acquisition by Intel and their tech has been abandoned. Meanwhile Intel acquired Habana Labs, partially because they did have good mlperf scores. Benchmarking is so important. It made me want to benchmark things I am doing!

Okay, that's about it so far, but I am going to try to start recording my impressions like this more often. Probably won't be able to keep it up. But who knows?

The concept of layers of abstraction in computer science is simply fascinating. It is really possible to keep diving down deeper. It reminded me of when I was in my first electronics class and I was asking about how AND and OR logic gates worked. That wasn't really the point of the class, it was more about figuring out how to assemble those parts to make an adder or do something useful. The teacher didn't even really know or understand my question (or why I was slowing down the class by asking it). Some other student volunteered that were must be some kind of thing inside of the gate that would close or open based on the total voltage. It took me a while to realize this word I had heard so many times, transistor, was really how these were made.
I was then drifting to thinking about the intersection between philosophy and computer science at that most basic level. Not only are the logic gates abstractions for the transistors used to create them, the gates themselves are assembled into things like adders, that compose arithmetic operations from boolean logic operations. This ties to (analytic) philosophy a bit, when you think about how Frege was talking about Peano's axioms, and Russell and Whitehead trying to derive mathematics from logic. It took me back to a semester when I studying Wittgenstein and Computer Architecture (two separate classes) and kept sliding to how Frege's types and type systems in programming languages are similar. I wonder what kind of programming language Wittgenstein would have created- maybe it would have a been a game...
Of course, compilers themselves are a form of translation from one language to another. That's always interesting to think about. I really didn't quite grasp how Intel x86 architecture translates from CISC to RISC in the chip, just in time.
The idea of compilers then got me thinking about the idea of interfaces as mediating between layers of abstraction. The layer of abstraction can be thought of as an interface. It defines how to interact with that layer, but provides this additional opaque box capability of being able to swap out the implementation without changing the other layers.
Some more prosaic thoughts on the idea of the best technology not always being the market winner. How much I hated Elasticsearch from a pure attitude and marketing perspective, their deceptive ways How I felt vindicated when they went away from open source. How much I hate their current market position and hope AWS crushes them.
Just the discussion of how ARM has so effectively pursued RISC, and how Apple is making the software stack integrated with the hardware so effectively, I wonder when there will be a true open architecture phone with mass adoption that can compete. Amazing that Apple is moving to this for their desktop operating system. It seems crazy, but the possibilities are huge.
Finally, the chat on mlperf was so interesting. I didn't realize Nervana had refused to release their mlperf scores prior to the acquisition by Intel and their tech has been abandoned. Meanwhile Intel acquired Habana Labs, partially because they did have good mlperf scores. Benchmarking is so important. It made me want to benchmark things I am doing!

Okay, that's about it so far, but I am going to try to start recording my impressions like this more often. Probably won't be able to keep it up. But who knows?

Let's Push Things Forward

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Thoughts on David Patterson and Lex Fridman

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