64bit versus 32bit

Please don't start a flame war over this. It is meant as more of a Dilbert-style post with just the slightest bit of real technical content.

64-bit machines are twice as fast as 32-bit machines because they have more bits.

Believe it or not there are still some people inside and outside Microsoft that believe this.  They're probably the same folks that believe a 4GHz P4 is twice as fast as a 2GHz P4.  Wouldn't it be nice if all that was really true?

I really do love my 64-bit machines.  One of them I run with a 32-bit OS, the other with a 64-bit OS.  They're both really fast at real world developer tasks despite their seemingly slow clocks.  They're not twice as fast, but they might be if you figure out a way to factor in their inherent disadvantage: all the pointers are twice as big.  Depending on your data structures, that could be a pretty big disadvantage.

--Grant