Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!charon!dik
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Computers for users not programmers
Message-ID: <2933@charon.cwi.nl>
Date: 14 Feb 91 00:24:46 GMT
References: <4772@mindlink.UUCP> <1991Feb13.180108.13480@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 41

In article <1991Feb13.180108.13480@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> xxremak@csduts1.UUCP (David A. Remaklus) writes:
 > >xxremak@csduts1.lerc.nasa.gov (David A. Remaklus) writes:
 > >> Manipulating byte oriented data with 64 bit word oriented hardware seems kind
 > >> of slow to me.  It may be a fast processor, but one would think that byte
 > >> oriented instructions would sure make text oriented processing go a lot
 > >> faster.
Perhaps.
...
 > Your missing the point.  I wholly agree that it is ludicrous to use
 > a CRAY for 'text' processing, but compiles, editing, link editing,
 > grep'ing, etc. are fall under my heading of 'text' processing.  Regardless
 > of the appropriateness, CRAYs perform these functions.
 > 
And they perform these functions well (and fast).  Just tried one of my
packages.  (Linecounts approximate:)
	Fortran source:		117 files,	6000 lines
	C source:		  8 files,	1900 lines
	Asembler source:	  1 file,	2000 lines
(of the 117 files Fortran source, 23 are include files used in many of the
other files).  The C source files go through 'sed' before going through the
compiler.  The other sources go through 'sed', 'cpp', 'sed' again before
going through the compiler/assembler.  Result with fully optimized compilation:
	real    0m47.94s
	user    0m22.17s
	sys     0m6.58s
I think this is reasonably fast.  (I noticed some compile times for individual
files; they ranged from 1.3 seconds for a 600 line source file (without
comments) down to 0.039 seconds.)

As somebody here remarked: you do not even have time to pick up your coffee
during a compile.

Consider also saying 'vi' against a 1 Mb file and getting instantaneous
response.  The key feature in many 'text processing' operations is I/O.
And I/O speed on the Cray is adequate.  I did some timings some time ago:
copying 85 Mbyte of data took 6 seconds.  And all data had to be shifted
around in those 64 bit registers!

--
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl