I think Carmack is a great engineer. Part of that is being great at communication.
And he is! Usually. But this paragraph is quite hard to follow:
> If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.
I think what he means is that he is offended by inefficiency in itself. Not because of any secondary ills inefficiency causes but just because he is that way.
He must know that hist last post will be read by many. Even if it would not leak, and only circulate inside facebook many non-developers would read it. And even if you are a developer "seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production" might mean nothing to you. I assume it is bad from the way he phrases it. Maybe it should be higher? Probably. But honestly who cares about the GPU utilisation if the app does what it should in a performant way?
He could have just wrote. "... pain of seeing an application waste resources in production." And then nobody has to spend mental cycles trying to guess what does 5% GPU utilisation means for him.
(And it is absolutely a guesswork. I'm myself working in a team responsible for the performance of a performance critical application and I love to see 5% gpu utilisation. My job is not to fill up the GPU, but to do something useful for the business. If an app can do that with only 5% of the GPU all the better!)
And then in the next paragraph in an edit he tried to explain himself. Probably because people complained that they don't understand what he is saying. As if you can alleviate confusion by explaining more. Instead of you know, fixing the source of confusion.
I'm a bit sad that he didn't had anyone help him edit such an important announcement before he posted it.
> Make better decisions and fill your products with “Give a Damn”!
Now that I love! I want that printed on a t-shirt. :)
Changing the source instead of adding an edit would make previous comments that were asking about the unclear part not make sense anymore.
The 5% figure is kinda shocking, that’s why he put a number. And it’s I think why people appreciate him, because he gets specific instead if writing a vague statement like “pain of seeing an application waste resources”.
I really don’t understand how it can be unclear that 5% is bad.
The thing that was actually unclear was people not understanding it was analogy for organizational effectiveness.
> And it’s I think why people appreciate him, because he gets specific
But he is not specific. As you write the specific problem he has is with the efficiency of the organisation. He is not quitting Meta because someone shipped a build with 5% GPU utilisation. The gpu utilisation thing is an example and the number is pulled out of thin air. And as an example it doesn't do a good job. It confuses people instead of illuminating what he is trying to say.
> I really don’t understand how it can be unclear that 5% is bad.
Because it is not bad? I'm writing here this comment, and my browser is barely utilising a single percentage of my GPU. Should the browser's developers rewrite their code to burn more GPU? Obviously not.
But there is a bigger problem with the analogy. It tries to explain something quite simple (Carmack sees the organisation is inefficient. He has a dislike to inefficiency because his job is to make computers more efficient.) And to illustrate this simple concept he brings in the vocabulary of a specialist field. (performance optimisation, and graphics programming) Thus reducing the audience who can understand his point for no good reason whatsoever.
> The thing that was actually unclear was people not understanding it was analogy for organizational effectiveness.
Yes. And it is the direct result of his writing being confusing.
Either you massively over-specced your hardware and should have chosen something cheaper and with less power consumption, or your graphics quality is far below what it could be.
Let's not beat around the bush: wasted resources are expensive, in some way or another.
Maybe? Maybe not? If you have a low GPU utilisation while loading a new level and only displaying a loading bar, that's not a serious issue. If a CAD software has a low GPU utilisation after loading that's not a serious issue. (It just means that the software GUI is written efficiently and can handle complicated assemblies.) If a chat application has a low GPU utilisation that is not a problem, it is simply not the application which calls for full utilisation of the GPU. If your inside-out-tracker has a low GPU utilisation that is not a problem, it just means that you are leaving more space for the user's applications.
But this is not the issue with the analogy. This conversation between you and me, whether or not 5% gpu utilisation is bad or good, or it-depends doesn't just happen here. It happens in everyones head who reads his post. He wants people to think about the organisational inefficiencies of Meta. And a significant portion of his audience is thinking "what is a GPU?". Because you can absolutely be a useful member of the Meta company without knowing that. And then a smaller portion of the audience is thinking "Is 5% GPU utilisation bad?" You could totally understand his points about organisational inefficiency without having to have any understanding of GPU performance metrics.
Meta has been heavily criticized on the poor quality of the graphics in VR. In this context poor GPU utilisation is a Very Serious Issue.
Carmac has been working with GPUs at a low level for 25 years. He's going to make a GPU analogy . Frankly, based on organizational dynamics, GPUs map fairly well. Work distribution, caches, warp fronts (aka 'sprints'), instruction sets.
And he is! Usually. But this paragraph is quite hard to follow:
> If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.
I think what he means is that he is offended by inefficiency in itself. Not because of any secondary ills inefficiency causes but just because he is that way.
He must know that hist last post will be read by many. Even if it would not leak, and only circulate inside facebook many non-developers would read it. And even if you are a developer "seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production" might mean nothing to you. I assume it is bad from the way he phrases it. Maybe it should be higher? Probably. But honestly who cares about the GPU utilisation if the app does what it should in a performant way?
He could have just wrote. "... pain of seeing an application waste resources in production." And then nobody has to spend mental cycles trying to guess what does 5% GPU utilisation means for him.
(And it is absolutely a guesswork. I'm myself working in a team responsible for the performance of a performance critical application and I love to see 5% gpu utilisation. My job is not to fill up the GPU, but to do something useful for the business. If an app can do that with only 5% of the GPU all the better!)
And then in the next paragraph in an edit he tried to explain himself. Probably because people complained that they don't understand what he is saying. As if you can alleviate confusion by explaining more. Instead of you know, fixing the source of confusion.
I'm a bit sad that he didn't had anyone help him edit such an important announcement before he posted it.
> Make better decisions and fill your products with “Give a Damn”!
Now that I love! I want that printed on a t-shirt. :)