Mark Danks

I am only 20 pages into it, but The Art of Multiprocessor Programming has become my new reference book. It deals with all kinds of lock-free algorithms, queues, and synchronization methods.

Going forward, it is critical that programmers understand how to deal with multiprocessor systems. While this book focuses on shared memory systems, the concepts are still applicable to the PS3 (which does not have a shared memory system due to the SPUs).

A common discussion in computer architecture is bandwidth versus latency. Each is important, but it is critical to understand the tradeoffs for each.

Imagine a garden hose. Connected to the hose is a hot and cold water faucet. As a user, you can turn on more hot or cold water. Then, at some time later in the future, the water coming out of the end of the hose is that new temperature.

• Bandwidth is how wide the hose is.
• Latency is how long the hose is.

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