4 Myths Propagated by Delusional Linux Enthusiasts

I’ll be up front about it.  I’m not a fan of Linux or any other Unix variant.  This includes BSD and Debian and Android and all those other little pet names they give the various distributions of Unix that are far too variable to count.  Over the years, Linux enthusiasts loved to tout all the reasons that their beloved open source operating system was superior to Windows, citing “stability” and “security” being two of the biggest reasons.

Now from the perspective of a guy who works mostly with Windows but is forced to tolerate Unix variants from time to time, I have to say that all the reasons people choose Unix over Windows are just completely baseless, especially in these modern times with just one notable exception: Windows has a price, and open source operating systems are typically free. Continue reading “4 Myths Propagated by Delusional Linux Enthusiasts”

A universally useful Thread class without all the guesswork.

I’ve been fascinated by the idea that a computer could potentially do more than one thing at the same time since before I got my hands on my first Pentium Pro back in the 90’s.  I was so fascinated by this concept, I decided to build a Dual Processor Pentium III machine as soon as it became reasonably affordable for 20-year old kid to have one in his home.  I was fascinated by the idea of unlocking the potential of this second processor and predicted that maybe one day, all home computers would have multiple processors, or multiple cores on a single processor.  I was right.

I generally obsess over threads and multi-processing, and now I run multiple machines with both Intel i7 processors (8 virtual cores) and AMD chips featuring 8 integer cores coupled with 4 floating point cores.    It can be quite the challenge to take full advantage of 8 cores.  You really need to have something significant for each core to do.  Additionally, unless you’re smart about your threading, you can waste valuable CPU cycles and time just creating and destroying threads. Continue reading “A universally useful Thread class without all the guesswork.”