Re: [Caml-list] How to write a CUDA kernel in ocaml?

[Eray Ozkural <examachine@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Basile STARYNKEVITCH
<basile@starynkevitch.net> wrote:
> Eray Ozkural wrote:
>>
>> Hello there,
>>
>> I've looked at the CUDA bindings for ocaml, but it seems the kernels
>> were in C, am I right? How can I write the kernel in ocaml? I have an
>> ocaml program that is badly in need of parallelization and it fits the
>> NVIDIA architecture. If ocaml changes are required please explain to
>> me a little, I have sufficient knowledge of compilers, I've worked on
>> a commercial C-to-FPGA compiler project for 2 years. Of course it
>> would be best if I can just handle it with a makefile :)
>
> You cannot do that today easily.
>
> The French OpenGPU project -funded by French public money
> http://www.competitivite.gouv.fr/spip.php?article581 (in which I will be a
> partner)- will start in january 2010 to deal with such issues (probably with
> OpenCL, not CUDA). There won't be usable results soon (and I have no idea if
> at end of the project, there will be a simple solution to your problem).
>
> You could try to help the OpenGPU partners involved. Ask Emmanuel Chailloux
> (in CC).
>
> If you need today to call a CUDA kernel from Ocaml, you have to use C!

It's great to hear such an effort, I will be following the
developments. Of course OpenCL will be just as good. Pretty similar,
anyway. I've seen some restrictions in OpenCL's C99 extension for
compiling kernels, which is *not good* and might ultimately impair the
implementation of a functional language.  I don't see how one could
think of putting any restrictions. We didn't have to invent any
restrictions when compiling to hardware!

At any rate, the obvious question from a compiler standpoint is,
cannot we compile ocaml to C, is there a way to translate to C first
and then to whatever works for kernel? I know little about the ocaml
compiler so please forgive my naive questions.

Best,

-- 
Eray Ozkural, PhD candidate.  Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ai-philosophy
http://myspace.com/arizanesil http://myspace.com/malfunct