Re: [dvd-discuss] Bunner wins DeCSS trade secret appeal

["D. C. Sessions" <dcs(at)lumbercartel.com>]

On Monday 05 November 2001 11:04, Noah silva wrote:

> Well in my technical view.. scripts aren't programs. I don't call people
> that write "programs" with SQL and Excel macros "programmers".  C, yeah,
> ASM, yeah, Pascal, sure.  Java.. what the heck..  If it's interpreted or
> doesn't make an .exe of some sort.. no.

But there are hardware machines that execute Java bytecode directly
(I should know, having helped with one) and it's possible to run x86
.EXE files on a Macintosh by feeding the bytes into an interpreter.

So does the Java bytecode change from data to program the day
that a particular integrated circuit reaches a magical market share
or something?  Or did a Windows .EXE stop being  program as
soon as Digital Equipment Corporation got their Alpha interpreter
going?

The video pipe on 3D cards is quite good at doing general rendering,
all with the video output disabled.  It's actually one of the most
efficient ways to produce 3D bitmaps.  What's more, 3D pipelines
are actually quite capable of general-purpose parallel math
far in excess of what x86 chips can do.  So that drawing list may
be a program for raytracing in the design of a telescope mirror or
something.  Now -- is that drawing list a program or data?  Same
codes, remember.

-- 
| I'm old enough that I don't have to pretend to be grown up.|
+----------- D. C. Sessions <dcs@lumbercartel.com> ----------+