Rich,
It would be nice if there was a place where we could get BU$ info and news without the crap, name calling and FUD. Any ideas how we accomplish that??
I've been giving it some thought. There is a moderated thread (which I think has 6 or so posts), but I'm not sure how a moderated thread would work or who the "gatekeeper" would/should be. I don't have a lot of faith that this would work in the long run.
Other than that, we could all try to set up some guidelines ourselves for name-calling, etc. and have the weight of the "community" come down on trangressors. Not sure that this would work either, but I'd start by suggesting that everyone should strike the following phrases from their vocabulary: "Losers", "Moron", "Scam", "Idiot", "BS", "Fool (except for Motley)", and I"m sure the list could be expanded greatly. Also, I think it would help if everyone would probably be clearer when they're posting an opinion versus whatever else.
In the end, I think there are two problems that will haunt us for awhile. First, this company generates so much more controversy than most that tempers are bound to flare. There is a lot of money that will be made and lost depending on the outcome of the DDR/RDRAM battle. Second, the results of the battle are still too far off to determine and the sides ebb and flow constantly with no clear answer in sight. That's also a very frustrating fact of life.
[Case in point, Scumbria. I met a compiler designer from SGI last night at a Kindergarten "get-acquainted" party for parents. We had a long talk about the Itanium, then moved on to Rambus. He was excited about RDRAM and claimed that for the type of work they focused on (lots of floating point calculations with heavy data streams), it would help tremendously. He quoted some benchmarks to me that I've forgotten. When I asked him about DDR, he calmed down and said he hadn't seen benchmarks, but he said he didn't think it would work as well. So to answer the question you posed to me a while back ,"Am I getting a view of consensus in the engineering community?", the answer is still 'no'. I'd actually feel alot better if it was 'yes' because then I'd at least know where to invest my money. <G>]
In the end, I'm not sure that this will happen long-term either. People will eventually panic one way or the other. I will, however, try to be more diligent about asking people when to stop they start name-calling. At least it'll be a start.
Stuart Steele said last year that the anti-Rambus sentiment (I believe he used the word 'FUD') was just starting and that it would continue to grow. He certainly called that one correctly. There's still too much uncertainty about all of this.
FWIW,
Dave |
