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From: khb@chiba.Sun.COM (chiba)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: yes vs. no on f8x
Message-ID: <99605@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 18 Apr 89 18:56:30 GMT
References: <24130@beta.lanl.gov> <44400036@hcx2>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: khb@sun.UUCP (chiba)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
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In article <44400036@hcx2> bill@hcx2.SSD.HARRIS.COM writes:
>
>....cogent arguments deleted...
>
>There are many other examples of how the array notation will adversely
>impact users of scalar machines.  I hope this has been, at least,
>educational to you.

On the other hand, scalar machines with caches can acheive much better
performance with array notation (that is it is possible, not that it
will necessarily happen, especially in an early release).

It is my experience that most codes which I encounter have not been
well tuned for _any_ machine. When taking a large existing code (again
on _any_ machine) I employ various profiling techniques to determine
where the bottlenecks are. Even in million line programs it is
typically only a handful of routines which need attention. If early
scalar compilers generate naive array code, this is easily fixed for a
particular code.

This is not to say that much bigger speedups can't be had via
algorithmic modifications (which having simpler code facilitates);nor
that the array notation is my favorite feature.

Arrays are an important part of scientific notation, and there is a
strong need for them to be supported as part of a langauge catering to
the scientific community.

Cheers.

Keith H. Bierman           |*My thoughts are my own. Only my work belongs to Sun*
It's Not My Fault          |	Marketing Technical Specialist 
-- I Voted for Bill & Opus |   Languages and Performance Tools. 
(* strange as it may seem, I do more engineering now     *)