Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpfcso!mjs
From: mjs@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Compilers & SPECmarks...
Message-ID: <8840028@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM>
Date: 15 Apr 91 19:12:49 GMT
References: <32097@shamash.cdc.com>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Lines: 12

Numerous people have pointed out that there exist tools to produce
instructions counts, which would aid in the counting of integer / floating
point operations.  This is true (I have written a quick-and-dirty instruction
counter myself, using ptrace), but such tools tend to be system/architecture
dependent (even my single stepper didn't work on SPARC), cumbersome to use,
and report with different granularity.  For instance, what exactly would
constitute a floating point operation, and how would the various tools report
it?

Benchmarks should be self-contained.  Relying on extra system dependent
hardware or software to analyze the results of a run will only serve to
guarantee apples-to-oranges comparisons.