[Python-Dev] String hash function multiplier

[Thomas Heller]

Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> writes:

>     Tim> What makes the current stepping of some flavor of P4 overwhelmingly
>     Tim> important <0.3 wink>?
>
> Unrelated to this thread, what does "stepping" mean?  A quick Google search
> for "Pentium stepping glossary" yielded this page
>
>   http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/help3.asp
>
> but doesn't explain why Intel uses "stepping" instead of "version" or
> "revision". 

Here is a possible answer:

  A stepping is the processor hardware equivalent of a new version. In
  software, we refer to minor version changes as 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and so
  on, while in processors we call these minor revisions steppings.

Found in
<http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=130978&seqNum=22>

Thomas