I can't remember where I saw it, but there was some mildly controversial talk from someone in industry to that effect at a CS conference, chastising universities for teaching their students about how CPUs work by using a model based more or less on 1980s RISC machines, which in his view was not very relevant to how a modern CPU works, and gave the wrong performance intuitions. I don't remember if he proposed a solution, though. In computer-engineering majors you solve that by having multiple courses, which work their way up to the modern complexities, but in a one-semester architecture course as part of a CS major, there isn't infinite room.
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I can't remember where I saw it, but there was some mildly controversial talk from someone in industry to that effect at a CS conference, chastising universities for teaching their students about how CPUs work by using a model based more or less on 1980s RISC machines, which in his view was not very relevant to how a modern CPU works, and gave the wrong performance intuitions. I don't remember if he proposed a solution, though. In computer-engineering majors you solve that by having multiple courses, which work their way up to the modern complexities, but in a one-semester architecture course as part of a CS major, there isn't infinite room.
If someone could remember what mjn is talking about, I would really appreciate a link to the talk.