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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Benchmarks from Hell
Keywords: RS/6000, i468, Enquirer
Message-ID: <2475@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 29 Aug 90 21:31:40 GMT
References: <631@stdc01.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Followup-To: comp.arch
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 39

In article <631@stdc01.UUCP> mjones@stdc01.UUCP (Michael Jones) writes:

[ Neal Norman said the 486 was faster than the RS6000 for fp in awk! ]

| They went on to disclose that the full details of the complete
| benchmark process will be published as a feature article in 
| next month's issue. Some rumor this turned out to be. It was
| a teaser for next month's zero-content article.

  Don't you think it's important to have a global optimizing awk
compiler? Do you realize how many sites run huge awk programs to do
their finite element analysis, and how important a vectorizing awk is
to them? Do you realize that I'm laughing so hard at the thought of
people getting ready to followup to this that I'm dripping tears in my
keyboard?

  Sorry, It's been a long day, I needed a laugh, and the thought of
people bracing themselves to write scathing denunciations was too much
to resist. I think you're over reacting to an incomplete data set about
the test conditions, and I hope you didn't read the first sentence of
my reply and take that too seriously, also.

Seriously:

  I have talked to Neal Norman, I have compared his results to mine for
certain machines and seen similar things, and I've been developing my
suite since 1970 (MULTICS vs GECOS (sic)). I don't think he's lost his
mind, and I'm pretty sure there's a good reason for doing it that way.

  I haven't looked up the article you mention, but we had a good talk
about selection of benchmarks to prevent vectorization *for testing
scalar performance* some years ago at UNIforum, so I can believe that
for testing some particular thing he may well have used awk. I doubt
that he was looking for max fp performance on that test, though. Let's
wait for the whole story.

-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
    VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.