64-bit windows version?

[skaller]

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 22:59 +0400, Bulat Ziganshin wrote:

> generally speaking, people want to use 64-bit code in order to work
> with much larger data space, overall speed may be better than using
> 32-bit version with 2gb limit

With x86_64, 64 bit programs are usually faster than 32 bit ones
even for small data, probably because despite the extra stack space
etc that is required for double sized pointers, there are also
more registers. There may also be a penalty for 32 bit code in other
parts of the processing pipeline, eg segmentation (which is not
available for 64 bit code).

IMHO the main use of 32 bit machines now is embedded applications,
for example mobile phones. Desktops are all switching to 64 bit:
Amd64 dual core PC-like machines are now very cheap: a friend
just bought one for $A500 .. at that kind of price there's
no reason to even think about buying a 32 bit desktop box.
Portables will follow quickly.

Systems like GHC really need to target the major boxes that
will be in use in 3 years, not what we have now. I wouldn't
drop 32 bit support -- there's LOTS of money in mobile phones,
and mass production provides money to pay for more secure
software such as use of more advanced languages like Haskell
where one is more confident of correctness than an equivalent
C program.

Still .. the main thrust has to be desktops, because desktops
are what developers use, and before a PL can be adopted in
embedded systems or servers you need a community of programmers
so management knows it can replace those hit by buses...

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net