Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!apple!oliveb!sun!chiba!khb
From: khb%chiba@Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - SPD Languages Marketing -- MTS)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: SPEC Bench-a-Thon
Keywords: SPEC performance benchmarks systems
Message-ID: <112809@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 28 Jun 89 08:20:14 GMT
References: <22031@abbott.mips.COM> <22033@abbott.mips.COM> <4714@ficc.uu.net>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: khb@sun.UUCP (Keith Bierman - SPD Languages Marketing -- MTS)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 30

In article <4714@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I think one thing that would make a nice benchmark is running a few
>generations of LIFE from a known interesting starting position, such as the

Why would this be an interesting benchmark ? The goal of any sensible
benchmark suite is to select codes which closely resemble real work
... SPEC has taken the approach that real applications come as close
as one can get... (which is sensible. I do think that the criteria for
accepting a benchmark should include a "performance functional" based
on what the new benchmark adds to the suite (it is currently FP heavy
.. so new FP codes should be discouraged ... otherwise any metric
based on a simple amalgam (mean, harmonic, geometric, total time, etc.)
will not reflect "common" usage ... if we can agree on what a "proper
workload is". In addition, the current rules ensure that identical
code is run on all machines. As a application programmer, I'd rather
call the local sort than expecting my portable version to be optimal
(and if I do have a portable one, do I use a recursive solution ? This
may adversely impact some otherwise fine machines). But the SPEC
effort is a good one, and like all right thinking people (:>) I support it.

If you really run life on a daily basis (for anything other than a
screen saver) then perhaps it does belong in. Please send it, along
with a description of what use the output is, and perhaps we will
propose it to SPEC).

Cheers.
Keith H. Bierman      |*My thoughts are my own. Only my work belongs to Sun*
It's Not My Fault     |	Marketing Technical Specialist    ! kbierman@sun.com
I Voted for Bill &    |   Languages and Performance Tools. 
Opus  (* strange as it may seem, I do more engineering now     *)