Sally McKee, who coined the term "the memory wall", has died

(online-tribute.com)

70 points | by deater 3 hours ago

3 comments

  • deater 2 hours ago
    There are probably so many stories out there of interesting things she did. A few are breifly referenced at her old website here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060116130917/http://www.csl.co...
  • DespairYeMighty 2 hours ago
    She was a CS PhD and somewhat itinerant professor with a long career who wrote a prominent CS paper about computer memory, Hitting the Memory Wall: Implications of the Obvious

    https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/216585.216588

    on her obituary page, you will see a prominent "Memory Wall" link that is NOT a reference to her paper, but a place for sharing your thoughts about her life

    • b473a 11 minutes ago
      Yeah tenure is nice but there's just a hint of mystery behind the title "itinerant professor." Like a wizard that just pops up in places to work computer science magic.
    • deater 2 hours ago
      you wouldn't believe how many people cite that paper as "Wulf et al." when that's practically more characters than saying "Wulf and McKee"

      I notice these things a bit more as she was my PhD thesis advisor

      • marricks 1 hour ago
        There's only two authors! That's so rude!
  • akkartik 3 hours ago
    My dissertation was on the memory wall, and I never heard of her :/ RIP
    • AnimalMuppet 1 hour ago
      Could you (or someone else in the know) give us a brief overview of the current state of the memory wall issue?
      • akkartik 1 minute ago
        Oh my knowledge is woefully out of date. But I believe the memory wall is a fact of life for the most part. Like many others, I nibbled around the edges of the constraint at massive cost in increased complexity. Outside of very specific exceptions the cure tends to be worse than the disease.