[ocaml-biz] The Hype Cycle

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brian Hurt wrote:
>
> One comment I will make- simply because a technology has had
> a peak of
> inflated expectations and descended into the trough of
> disillusionment,
> doesn't mean it's going to crawl back up the slope of elightenment to
> reach the plateau of productivity.  I vote that the Itanium
> is the current
> gold-standard example of this:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/30/opteron_itanium_sales_q2/

Man do I personally hate Merced.  I put my early career into mastering
the DEC Alpha, the best CPU that had shipped anywhere.  DEC sued Intel,
DEC got money.  DEC became cash attractive and Compaq gobbled it up.
DECcies lost faith in the Alpha, internally within the company.  We'd
get lied to in employee meetings about how Compaq was going to "do
something" with the Alpha license, not just kill it.  I left DEC before
the Compaq buyout was completed.  I saw the writing on the wall.

All these years later, those Intel assholes still don't have anything
better than the x86 to offer.  But I have to give them credit where
credit is due.  Intel had DEC whipped on fab, that's how they put the
nails in our coffin.  And DEC couldn't market its way out of the paper
bag.  Many sad lessons of disillusionment for a young techie.  I wanted
to believe in something.  I found that corporations cannot, under any
circumstances, be believed in.

AMD Opteron's success will be sweet revenge though.  'Round the time I
left, AMD and DEC were in an alliance / partnership regarding floating
point technology.


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

OCaml offers superior high level language features,
superior type safety, and performance.
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