On Fri Nov 12 2010 at 14:30:58 +0100, Johnny Billquist wrote:
By reasoning that we should design for tomorrows hardware, we might as
well design explicitly for x86_64, and let all other emulate that. But
in the past, I believe NetBSD have tried to raise above such simple and
naïve implementation designs and actually try to grab the meaning of the
operation instead of an explicit implementation. That have belonged more
in the field of Linux. I hope we don't go down that path...
Freeway design is not driven by the requirements of the horse. If a horse
occasionally wants to gallop down a freeway, we're happy to let it as long
as it doesn't cause any impediment to the actual users of the freeway.
Over 15 years ago NetBSD had a possibility to take everyone into account
since everyone was more or less on the same line. This is no longer true.
If old architectures can continue to be supported, awesome, but they may
in no way dictate MI design decisions which hold back the capabilities
of modern day architectures.