As was said during the last YAPC::EU in Copenhagen, multiple cores means also a lower clock-speed, so any application that runs in only one core is by definition running slower and is essentially at the mercy of the OS whether its core gets shared with other applications, slowing it down even more.

Not all applications are open to parallel execution. A "read one line, do something with it, write the result to a file, start over again" is basically something sequential that would need a lot of overhead to split it over multiple cores. I think the majority of the scripts we write are of this type.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James


In reply to Re: Multi-core and the future by CountZero
in thread Multi-core and the future by pileofrogs

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