On Thursday, 13 February 2014 at 06:19:41 UTC, evilrat wrote:
> On Wednesday, 12 February 2014 at 17:01:26 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
>> On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 19:58:48 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>>>> Developers with a decent system should have no problem at all
>>> building
>>> both 32-bit and 64-bit versions
>>
>> Pensioner, limited budget, want to contribute?
>
> just imagine a pensioner compiling chrome(or other big project) for all OS'es on one box all at once...

I would take my hat off to that pensioner! (If I had one)

On Monday, February 10, 2014 18:21:02 Steve Teale wrote:
> On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 21:12:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
> 
> wrote:
> > so it's nice to have a lot of overhead (and with memory being
> > as cheap as it
> > is, I don't see much reason not to put as much memory in the
> > box as it can
> 
> Jonathan, you live in a different world. Memory is not cheap everywhere - maybe not even available, and not everyone - probably a minority in fact in world terms, has a recent processor, or even enough memory slots.

For a desktop? It's trivial to get a lot of memory into one of those. Laptops would be more limiting, but even there, I'd expect 4GB to be on the low side at this point, and that's already more than 32-bit machines can address. And it's been 5+ years since I even had as little as 8GB in a machine, so I'd expect most desktops and laptops at this point to have enough memory that it couldn't all be addressed with 32 bits (stuff like mobile and embedded are clearly a different world though). And I'd certainly expect a developer to normally have a machine with at least 4GB.

I definitely do use a lot more memory than most people do though - in part because I tend to leave everything open all the time. And I typically have a machine that's no more than 2 or 3 years old with hardware which was on the higher end of things when I bought it. Folks who don't upgrade as often would be more on the 4GB side of things rather than in the 64GB range, but it's been a numbers of years since 4GB was a lot, so I would have thought that having at least that much would be pretty common at this point.

Regardless, it's been quite a few years since any desktop or laptop chips were 32-bit, so I don't see any reason to run a 32-bit OS unless your unlucky enough to have a 32-bit version of Windows, and IMHO, it really hasn't made a lot of sense to run a 32-bit version of Windows since Vista was released (though 64-bit XP was a joke, so prior to Vista, it would have made sense to be running a 32-bit OS).

But the fact that you're even asking the question shows that you have a very different world-view than I do with regards to computers.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Wednesday, February 12, 2014 20:23:53 Kagamin wrote:
> On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 21:12:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
> 
> wrote:
> > And you get more memory out of
> > the deal even if you have as little as 4GB in the box. I wish
> > that everything
> > would move to 64-bit so that we wouldn't have to even worry
> > about 32-bit
> > anymore.
> 
> What's the advantage of having 64-bit OS on 4gb RAM?

Being able to actually use all of it. IIRC, the most that you can actually use with a 32-bit OS is more like 3.6GB.

> The fact is cheap configurations became available for a wider userbase with smaller income, who wouldn't think to buy a notebook not so long ago. And you sure can't persuade them to spend more money, 32-bit OS works and once installed it will run long (you don't upgrade notebooks), as long as it works, there's no reason to fix it.

Except that there's no reason to put a 32-bit OS on the machine in the first place. Sure, most folks will use whatever OS was on the box, and for some reason, Microsoft continues to sell 32-bit versions of its OS, but AFAIK, there's no real advantage to running a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit processor - only disadvantages. Maybe there's a good reason for it that I'm not aware of, but as far as I can see, there's no reason for Microsoft to even be selling a 32- bit version of their OS anymore, since 32-bit programs will run on the 64-bit version, and 32-bit x86 chips aren't produced anymore. They've all been 64-bit for years now. So, even if someone has a lower end machine that has less than 4GB, I see no reason to run a 32-bit OS on it. And I would have thought that 4GB would be pretty low end at this point anyway.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 2/13/2014 7:20 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>
> as far as I can see, there's no reason for Microsoft to even be selling a 32-
> bit version of their OS anymore, since 32-bit programs will run on the 64-bit
> version, and 32-bit x86 chips aren't produced anymore. They've all been 64-bit
> for years now. So, even if someone has a lower end machine that has less than
> 4GB, I see no reason to run a 32-bit OS on it.

Last I heard, Intel still manufactures a metric shit-ton of chips that deliberately lack hardware virtualization (my machine's not even a couple years old and it uses one of those chips). So running VMed Windows (VirtualBox, etc) would be impossible on those machines without a 32-bit Windows.

On 2/13/14, 18:09, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Monday, February 10, 2014 18:21:02 Steve Teale wrote:
>> On Sunday, 9 February 2014 at 21:12:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
[snip]

> For a desktop? It's trivial to get a lot of memory into one of those. Laptops
> would be more limiting, but even there, I'd expect 4GB to be on the low side
> at this point,

For *new* machines yes.  But 2 and even 1 are still common.

On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 16:18:24 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> Popped into my head today.
>
> What proportion of the D community develops on Linux of some sort, and what proportion works with a 64 bit OS?
>
> And why?


I have an 64-bit Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

On Friday, 14 February 2014 at 00:10:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> But the fact that you're even asking the question shows that you have a very
> different world-view than I do with regards to computers.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Jonathan, I find your response distinctly elitist.

I certainly do have a different world view. I live in Africa where most of what you can get is probably old stock that got dumped here. Of the last 3 2G memory cards I bought, 2 were duff, and that's at $50 apiece, and little chance of getting your money back.

Even when I got two that worked, my motherboard could only support 3 of the 4G, even though the processor is quite capable.

We're stuck with 32 bit for a long time here, and telling us to get into the 21st century doesn't help much.

Steve

On Tuesday, 4 February 2014 at 16:18:24 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> Popped into my head today.
>
> What proportion of the D community develops on Linux of some sort, and what proportion works with a 64 bit OS?
>
> And why?

You should start a poll somewhere to have a proportion, because
only linux-users are replying.

I am using ArchLinux 64 bits ( i3, 4 gB ).

On Friday, 14 February 2014 at 17:50:57 UTC, Steve Teale wrote:
> Jonathan, I find your response distinctly elitist.

Programming world is naturally elitist. There is nothing just about it. Problem to solve is making more modern h/w available for interested souls, not reverting to write 32-bit programs.

On Friday, February 14, 2014 17:50:56 Steve Teale wrote:
> On Friday, 14 February 2014 at 00:10:13 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
> 
> wrote:
> > But the fact that you're even asking the question shows that
> > you have a very
> > different world-view than I do with regards to computers.
> > 
> > - Jonathan M Davis
> 
> Jonathan, I find your response distinctly elitist.
> 
> I certainly do have a different world view. I live in Africa where most of what you can get is probably old stock that got dumped here. Of the last 3 2G memory cards I bought, 2 were duff, and that's at $50 apiece, and little chance of getting your money back.
> 
> Even when I got two that worked, my motherboard could only support 3 of the 4G, even though the processor is quite capable.
> 
> We're stuck with 32 bit for a long time here, and telling us to get into the 21st century doesn't help much.

I was merely indicating what my expectations were based on what I know and have seen, not trying to insist that anyone who didn't match them needed to get a new computer or anything like that. And from the sounds of it, you're stuck with hardware that's nearly a decade old, which is not the sort of hardware that I'd expect a software developer to have. So, if anything, I feel sorry for you. I'm certainly not trying to look down on you.

But it doesn't really change my take on 32-bit vs 64-bit. I still wouldn't use a 32-bit OS unless I had no other choice, and it is only a matter of time until 32-bit is essentially dead - especially outside of Windows. And it would be nice if we could get to the point where everyone is on 64-bit OSes so that we can stop worrying about about supporting 32-bit software outside of emulators or virtual machines. But regardless of the situation in the third world, as long as Microsoft continues to sell 32-bit versions of Windows, we're still going to have at least some 32-bit software.

- Jonathan M Davis