Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!system From: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) Subject: Re: ftn 10.8.p serious problems / tirade (again) Message-ID: <1991Apr6.141254.12054@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department References: <1991Apr3.230735.9578@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1991 14:12:54 GMT In article hanche@imf.unit.no (Harald Hanche-Olsen) writes: >In article <1991Apr3.230735.9578@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) writes: > 2) where the **** are the DN10000 compiler beta testers? > >Here is one. I don't think it's fair to blame the state of the >compilers on the beta testers. Their role is not to perform extensive >and comprehensive testing of the system ... I am not necessarily blaming beta sites, but I would have expected that beta sites would exercise a product heavily - in your case, using C more than f77 means that you don't abuse the ftn compiler as much, which may be giving HPollo a false impression of the robustness of the compiler. Also, do you compile everything with '-O' or even '-W0,-opt,4' ('-O4')? Since FORTRAN is usually used for number crunching, having programs/libraries that are compiled without at least '-O' is rather pointless. We have 3 compiler-breaker packages that I always try to compile with a new compiler including Gaussian 88 (which HPollo has in-house), and the NCAR library (which HPollo could easily get). > We are finding > problems within 24 hours of installing the compilers, but that seems to > be story of our life with HP/Apollo :-(. > >Not an unknown feeling. This is one reason why we volunteered to help >with beta testing. Maybe you should try to volunteer yourself for >beta testing the next release? We actually had one version of the 10.8 ftn beta compiler which we needed to compile Gaussian 88. I did try it on other packages, but had to give up after finding 2 bad optimizer bugs, 1 of which is remarkably similar to the major problem I described. We have volunteered to beta test things like ftn, but there has been no response; I think HPollo would rather that a large heavy object fell on our site :-). I can not beta test SR10.x.p (although we end up doing that anyways) since that machine is our central system supporting almost all our users. Mike. -- Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca Tel: (416) 978-7094 Fax: (416) 978-8775