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From: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Benchmarking
Message-ID: <6005@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 9 Oct 88 19:07:32 GMT
References: <2220003@hpausla.HP.COM> <46500026@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <1988Oct9.011633.13259@utzoo.uucp> <6001@june.cs.washington.edu>
Reply-To: pardo@cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 23

rik@june.cs.washington.edu (Rik Littlefield) writes:
>[ large "real" program benchmarks vs. synthetic benchmarks ]

Oh, gee, an opportunity to apply the scientific method :-)

(a) Benchmark a bunch of computer systems (hardware/os/compiler)
    using synthetic benchmarks.
(b) Compare the benchmark performance to observations in the
    "real" world.
(c) Learn something about benchmarks, refine your synthetic
    benchmarks.
(d) go to (a)   (Oh no, not a GOTO!)

People like Kahan bitched to other computer scientists about floating
point inconsistancy.  Now people formally study floating point numbers
as a subject.  Performance modelling is a formal area, but I don't
know anybody studying "benchmarks" as a formal subject.  When people
do, benchmarks may get much better.

	;-D on  ( We're in the dark about benchmurking )  Pardo
-- 
		    pardo@cs.washington.edu
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