Re: [9fans] grid computing -- high performance?

[Eric Van Hensbergen <ericvh@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:16:23 -1000 (HST), Tim Newsham <newsham@lava.net> wrote:
> I know that people experiment with plan 9 for grid computing,
> since the operating system is well suited for it.  I was wondering
> if it is used for actual high performance work?

We may end up looking at that a little later this year - at least on
ppc64 power4-type systems.

> 
> Do people use the plan 9 compilers?  It doesn't seem like the p9 compilers
> are suited for high performance number crunching (not that I think they
> are bad compilers).  
>

It all depends on what you want to do.  We were trying to
hand-schedule some HPC code and the gcc compilers (and xlc compilers)
with their gratuitous cleverness completely screwed up our
hand-scheduling.  If you really know what you are doing, simple
compilers are your friend.

> Have people ported optimizing compilers?  If
> so, which ones, and are they available?

Hogan's GCC port might be something to look at (not that I consider
GCC to be an optimal compiler - but it'll have a different set of
optimizations than the Plan 9 compiler and might support stuff like
SSE).

    -eric