Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!ames!pioneer!eugene
From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Single tasking the wave of the future?
Message-ID: <3771@ames.arpa>
Date: 28 Dec 87 22:35:58 GMT
References: <18@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> <2341@encore.UUCP> <25@amelia.nas.nasa.gov> <1030@alliant.Alliant.COM>
Sender: usenet@ames.arpa
Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 26
Keywords: parallel processing today

In article <1030@alliant.Alliant.COM> muller@alliant.UUCP (Jim Muller) writes:
>> >Debugging is a whole other soapbox, but my experience is that debugging
>   Race conditions are typically a problem only when a compiler has been
>   inappropriately "permitted" to optimize code that it normally would have
>   refused.  The obvious approach, of course, should be to debug in single-
>   processor mode.

Excuse me for chuckling.  This approach was mentioned and rejected
several years ago at Cray User Group meetings.  [I note your innocence
below.]  There are several good old HEP papers which show single machine
debugging isn't the solution.  I just hope that fewer other readers make
the same mistake.  Not every problem is a race condition, but we've
seen some good ones.

>   My background is science, not computer architecture, so I do not fully
>   appreciate the "decades of parallel processing research" or the "past

Don't worry we won't that against you.  ;-) [Nor the comment that you
worked for Alliant.]

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene