> Fortran is the 1000 lbs gorilla
I've often been curious about this. I did some F90 programming, & it wasn't
too bad, but with F77, I could just feel the dust creeping in around the
keyboard (python gives me the same feeling with all those spaces). Is the
Fortran that's used in HPC something more modern like F95/03 (or even F--)?

The rest of the letter is great; I was going to write a response, but your's
hit every point I was going to make better.

On 4/28/07, Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/28/07, Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:
> > > No, but you're not going to like the reason. AFAIK nobody misses it,
> > > because there may not be a single HPC app in widespread use that could
> > > be run on Plan 9 today. We've been looking. Roman knows more than I do
> > > on this issue.
> >
> > But the question would be whether those applications do use complex
> > types and thus adding them to KenCC would bring them closer to porting
> > to Plan 9.  At least, that seems a legitimate question.
> >
>
> What Ron is saying is that the problem with making most HPC apps work
> on Plan 9 are not C language features -- its the lack of support for
> popular languages for doing HPC work.  Fortran is the 1000 lbs gorilla
> here, although there are quite a few C++ codes as well.  The second
> problem is the lack of support for certain libraries -- like OpenMP
> and MPI -- which are heavily reliant on POSIX features that are the
> least compatible with Plan 9 (posix threads, BSD sockets, signals,
> mmap, etc.)
>
> >
> > Or are you saying that no HPC app comes even remotely close to being
> > portable?
> >
>
> There are multiple degrees of portability.  Most of the world
> considers POSIX the portability layer (and APE won't cut it on our end
> for the reasons stated above).  But even then, HPC apps are large and
> complex beasts -- most take a few weeks to a month to figure out how
> to compile and tune even on a "standard" system.  The problem is there
> is increasingly less diversity on the UNIX OS space, so the "standard"
> is rapidly moving from POSIX to Linux/X11.
>
>                  -eric
>



-- 
"No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago passed he by.
Zarathustra he was called; but he hath altered.
  Then thou carriedst thine ashes into the mountains: wilt thou now
carry thy fire into the valleys? Fearest thou not the incendiary's
doom?
  Yea, I recognize Zarathustra. Pure is his eye, and no loathing
lurketh about his mouth. Goeth he not along like a dancer?"
-- The Saint, Also Sprach Zarathustra