(j3.2006) (SC22WG5.4435) AW: Comments to 10-166 (early coarray TR draft)

[Bader, Reinhold]

Hello Tobias, 

 A more recent WG5 with further suggestions is available at 

ftp://ftp.nag.co.uk/sc22wg5/N1801-N1850/N1835.txt

This also gives an expectation on when the feature list could be fixed.

Regards
Reinhold

________________________________________
Von: j3-bounces at j3-fortran.org [j3-bounces at j3-fortran.org]" im Auftrag von "Tobias Burnus [burnus at net-b.de]
Gesendet: Freitag, 1. April 2011 18:59
Bis: fortran standards email list for J3
Betreff: (j3.2006) Comments to 10-166 (early coarray TR draft)

Hi all,

admittedly, it is probably a bad timing as everyone is interested in TR
29113 and not other work items. However, I happened to have time to
glance at 10-166 (draft of coarray TR, dated 2010/02/18).

First, I spotted an "ALL STOP" which should be an ERROR STOP (in A.1.1).

Secondly, I miss a possibility to broadcast values to all (or to a
team); unless I have missed something even with TR one has still to do do:

   if (this_image()==1) then
     ! READ input file
     ! Distribute values:
     do image = 2, num_images()
       z[image] = z
     end do
   end do
   SYNC ALL

(Or in the "IF" a "SYNC IMAGES(*)" and in ELSE a "SYNC IMAGES(1)"). I
think sending the value to each other image, image by image, is rather
slow if many images are involved. (Assume a calculation on 6k Blue Gene
processors or using the full 294,912 processors of the HPC system 600
metres from here.) On such systems, sending the configuration can then
take a significant amount of the total computation time. That time is
wasted especially as there is a dedicated collective network with
one-to-all broadcast functionality.

For reductions, the draft provides the most important ones. However, I
see again some unneeded communication as: "A collective subroutine is
one that is invoked on a team of images to perform a calculation on
those images and which assigns the value of the result on all of them"
(4.1.1). While that is often the desired result, one frequently needs
the result only at one image. Coming again back to calculation on a
many-processor system: Doing the collective operations in a tree-like
manner and sending it to a single reduction-master image is faster than
collecting it on all systems - especially since there is a barrier (team
synchronization) after the reduction, which could be avoided on all but
the one image which is interested in the reduction.

Tobias

PS: It would be nice if someone could save the three comments such that
they can be discussed, when the topic comes up again after TR 29113.

PPS: I hope I have found the latest draft.
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