From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c3d0e99376a4f379 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.net!newsdst01.news.prodigy.net!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com.POSTED!cfe18fef!not-for-mail From: Gary Scott Organization: Home User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada References: <1187235764.909133.180650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.94.42.31 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com 1187313876 ST000 68.94.42.31 (Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:24:36 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:24:36 EDT X-UserInfo1: Q[R_PJSCTS@]RV@[WBHB^WHAAJYFBL@MAHU^_BAMEH]TCDYG^WHOPCWZBL[\YUWHANGYZEFNHFZPNLOBUNSS^_LGEVWEY\PHO@YJSSWBBDT\PFD^ESBTXVCCMTD]JCJLE\_IJMFNRY]SWE[S[D_CNB__ZK^VGVCKHA[S@COB^[@ZQSDFQ\BPMS@DZVUKQTJL Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:24:31 -0500 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:1466 Date: 2007-08-16T20:24:31-05:00 List-Id: anon wrote: > Even though Ada does have a few packages that are interesting in > numeric code. The idea that any language such as Ada is better than > FORTRAN will not go over very well. Except for college project or > class assignments, that might give you something to do. But in the > real world, it will not fly. To fully understand this try looking at the > history of SISAL (see below for definition). > > There are a number of other High Performance Computing (HPC) > languages that were design back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. But > most have since died off because the lack of funding and previous > work done in FORTRAN and C. LISP has stay around but it role > was altered to mostly non-HPC status. > > As for Ada: > > First, is the acceptance of Ada. In the world of mathematic FORTRAN > was design to and rules that universe. Non-GNU FORTRAN compilers > are optimized for mathematic while Ada is not. And until that changes > most high performance numeric programmers will not accept Ada in that > world. Outside of FORTRAN they use pure "C" and maybe Lisp. They > also say no to "c++" or any other languages. > > Second, most programmer do not want to spend the 100s to 1000s of > hours to translate or convert the libraries that are written in FORTRAN > to any other language including Ada. That is around 50+ years worth of > library source code. And that does not include the time and expense of > getting the copyright and or Software Patents rights to do the > translation. Plus, translating any code from one language to another is > simply boring for most programmers. > > Plus, it is a lot easier to write and understand code that is wriiten in > the same language. So, for libraries that are coded in FORTRAN means > the project languages needs to be in FORTRAN. And that's the way HPC > committees like it. > > Now, for High Performance Computing projects, well it hard to find open > source projects that deal with mathematic. In todays world, normally > you must be hired and move up to the position in HPC. Jobs in the > fields of Aerospace, Weather, Oceanic Research, and Medical are some > of the primary fields. All of these require knowledge in other fields that > are not commonly known to most programmers. Nornally, it people in > these specialize fields that become programmers and they use what is > commonly use for programming aka FORTRAN or C. > > Some of the not so commonly known job fields are Web Servers, and > Neural Networks but these are not driving by higher performance > mathematic, but by Database and File Accessing. > > But for the best information on High Performance Mathematic > Computing, check with your local college or university computer > department in a couple of weeks after the fall semester starts. Give > a few days for the school to calm down into the semester routine > before asking. > > With the newer computers having dual processors you would think that > most would want to see HPC coding on these desk top. But business > owner are hard to adopt new program or computing paradigms. And > scientists want 16 to 512 processors aka a supercomputer to play with > so to them a dual processors is only building blocks toward that design. > And with a price tag to match they are hard to the average programmer to > buy or build. > > > As for SISAL (definition): > > SISAL is programming language that automatically parallelizes code for > parallel computers, but still works on single processors. it is a > functional language that is hightly efficient for numerical computation. > The Sisal project was based until the early 2000's, at the Lawrence > Livermore National Laboratory, but it has been canceled there. You can > still find the source code for SISAL on the internet. > > > > > In <1187235764.909133.180650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>, holst writes: > >>Hi! >> >>I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was >>made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of >>scientific computing, are highly interested in. >> >>What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high >>performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book >>(yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be >>related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and >>Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95. >> >>I applicate your time and help. I hope that, with a push in the right >>direction I will be a productive "Ada numerics hacker" in a near >>future. :-) >> >>[1] http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00296.TXT >> >>-- >>Henrik Holst, Sweden >>http://www.nada.kth.se/~holst/contact.shtml >>Number of productive hours in C++: of >> > You forgot to mention that Fortran has not stood still. It is a moving/advancing target. Yes it has baggage. But it is evolving quite well, within those constraints. -- Gary Scott mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org -OR- Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows it can't be done. -- Henry Ford