ARM first & default LDC

[Dylan Graham]

On Tuesday, 15 December 2020 at 10:13:41 UTC, IGotD- wrote:
> On Tuesday, 15 December 2020 at 08:06:34 UTC, Dylan Graham 
> wrote:
>>
>> I work with ARM daily (automotive) and I'm skeptical of that 
>> assumption. Sure Apple is moving over, but that's a more 
>> centralised and controlled ecosystem. It won't be as easy with 
>> Windows or GNU+Linux.
>>
>> Why would the developers put in all that effort if it turns 
>> out to be another "Year of the Linux desktop" or "Rust is 
>> superior and everyone will be using it"?It would be safer and 
>> less of a hassle to react to market conditions than to predict 
>> and preempt them.
>>
>> Let the chips fall where they may, and work based on that. 
>> It's too early yet.
>
> Apple might have gone over to ARM but in the Windows world x86 
> isn't going away anytime soon. There is simply too much SW for 
> x86 for people making the switch. There are x86 emulators but 
> the performance is probably not satisfactory right now.
>
> I would rather say that ARM is getting more competition in 
> embedded. Because of the recent sales of ARM, this is enough to 
> get some people scared. They believe that the business model of 
> ARM is going away or they will refocus. Regardless if this is 
> true or not some are looking at alternatives and that might be 
> RISC V. Also where cost is important RISC V will have an 
> advantage. The rising star in my opinion is RISC V.

32 bit ARM chips are $5.32 AUD for a single unit. If the RISC-V 
can come out much cheaper then mass produced items will be 
probably be the first to mass-migrate. A dollar or two difference 
might not mean much to a hobbyist but in a production line that 
scales up to thousands -> tens or hundreds of thousands of 
dollars. From there it'd probably snow ball into other fields. 
Electronics / embedded production (and its firmware) is ever 
changing and would make the most sense to gnaw at that market 
before attempting to conquer PC.