Subject: hpff: July HPFF Meeting Minutes

From: Doug MacDonald <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 95 18:16:26 EDT

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   Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 16:38:20 -0700
   From: [email-masked] (Mary E Zosel)

   High Performance Fortran Forum Meeting
   July 26-28, Denver Colorado
   Record of Action:  Mary Zosel

   ...

   Detailed Record of Action

   ...

   David Loveman began the subgroup reports with  an overview of the 
   subgroup E (external issues) discussions.    Subgroup E meetings addressed a 
   proposal for HPF kernel, a mechanisms to make interoperability between HPF 
   and C/C++ easier, the role of the subset in HPF version 2, whether some 
   features should be removed from the language, a list of tool requirements, and 
   the problems associated with multilevel distributions when an arbitrary 
   configuration involving clusters of SMPs  and possibly workstations might 
   exist.

   The goal of a kernel would be:
	   new code, written well,  should perform well
	   high-performance across all platforms
	   no "performance surprises"
	   no runtime overhead
	   no requirement for interprocedural analysis
	   simplified user model (easily understood and taught, commonly used, 
		   and valuable for all platforms)

   For interoperability, issues discussed were:
	   HPF calling C (C++)
		   compiler convert all "basic" types
		   X Windows library as a typical target
		   define a module C_INTERFACE with definitions
			   of Fortran 90 KINDs for C types
		   EXTRINSIC(C)
	   C (C++) calling HPF
		   mapping of function (and module function) names
		   parameter passing
		   pointers
		   structures
   An ISO group associated with WG5 is also discussing this.  Initial contact was 
   made with the group, but the leadership is in the process of changing.

Hello,

The portion of the July meeting minutes touches on a topic of interest to
me: the object and data mapping descriptors used to provide interfaces
between HPF routines and subroutines written in a "scalar" language such as
C.  For instance, given an array A with a given alignment or distribution,
a HPF routine might pass A to a C subroutine in the form of a the address
of a predefined descriptor object that contains information about the
shape, type, layout, etc., of A.  Is standardization of such descriptor
sets a part of subgroup E's activities?  If not, is such an effort underway
elsewhere?

Thanks,
Doug MacDonald
Thinking Machines
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