Subject: hpff-core: Follow Up to January Meeting

From: [email-masked] (Ken Kennedy)
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 17:03:39 -0600 (CST)

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I wanted to follow up on the events of the January meeting so that we are
all focused on the tasks we need to accomplish for the rest of the spring.

1. Word Processing System

Although I have not yet been able to do a deal with Adobe, I would propose
that we go ahead and settle on FrameMaker 5 as the word processing system
for the document. FrameMaker gives us an implementation on all major
platforms and compatibility with Fortran 95.

We will take care of providing a copy to the Executive Director. As I
understand it, the remainder of the document editors may be able to acquire
copies on their own. I will, however, continue to pursue the Adobe
connection with Chuck Geshke.

Chuck Koelbel has agreed to be in charge of getting the document moved from
Loveman's Word version to Frame using (I hope) the formats developed for
Fortran 95.

2. The New Document Division

At the January meeting we tentatively adopted a document organization that
has three versions of the language: a kernel based on Meltzer's kernel
proposal, the 2.0 language based on 1.1 plus a few extensions and
contractions, and a set of "approved extensions."  In doing this, we are
attempting to encourage the compiler developers to focus on high-quality
implementations of the base language before moving to new and more
difficult features.

However, it is very important that we not discard the efforts of those who
have been working on extensions that were part of the charge adopted at the
kickoff for HPF 2, especially support for irregular computations and task
parallelism. Thus, the "approved extensions" must be taken very seriously
by the group and in the report, because they specify how the features
should be provided in future commercial and research compiler systems. We
cannot treat these as a "journal of development" to which anything can be
added that is not approved for the language itself.
We must continue the efforts we have been carrying on to pass an accessible
standard for the longer-term future as well as one for the present and
immediate future.

We will have a very full schedule at our next meeting, so I encourage
everyone to come early enough to work on proposals before the plenary
meeting itself begins.

Ken

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