Re: [mpi-21] Call for MPI 2.2 and 3.0 agenda items for the Jan mee ting

["William Yu" <wyu@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I remember this project a few years ago. I was able to get it working with LAM i think. However, the concern was that is was simply a JNI wrapper on top of a native mpi library. This makes the system prone to all sorts of problems particular linking and memory use behavior.

But it was definitely a step in the right direction. I visited the project again today and it seems they "might" undergo a revival.

Thanks for the lead.

PS. The reason for my personal interest in this is that I am toying with the idea of teaching HPC in Java instead of C. Hopefully, that would make the class more accessible to non-computational science majors (general computer programming crowd).

________________ Reply Header ________________
Subject:	Re: [mpi-21] Call for MPI 2.2 and 3.0 agenda items for the Jan meeting
Author:	Stephen Siegel <siegel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:		December 02nd 2007 12:45 am

In case some of you are not aware of the mpiJava project, here is the  
URL:
http://www.hpjava.org/mpiJava.html
The API is described in a document included with the download.

I don't know how active this project is now, but in the past I have used
this system and it worked reasonably well.

Steve

On Dec 1, 2007, at 7:02 PM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote:

>
> 1. In the context of past efforts these language binding issues  
> would be the responsibility of a subcommittee that deals with  
> language binding. So I suggest that one of the things we need to  
> address at the January meeting is the formation of such a language  
> binding subcommittee and if we do not currently have people with the  
> right language backgrounds we invite a few relevant people to  
> participate.
>
> For example, in the case of Java (that seems especially important to  
> me), would it not be prudent to simply ask Sun for some  
> participation; I am quite certain that such a request will have  
> sympathetic ears. Somebody should speak to James Gosling and/or Guy  
> Steele - they can at least point us in the right direction.
>
> 2. I would like to see the merits of the proposed User Experience  
> meeting discussed at the January meeting. If I am not present (which  
> seems likely at this point) I am willing to dial into that discussion.
>
> With respect,
> Steven
>
> --
> Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
> Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
> http://iase.info
> http://senses.info
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2007, at 1:08 PM, Erez Haba wrote:
>
>> I agree with Jeff here, the higher abstraction languages require  
>> more than a plain down level interface like C/FORTRAN. To make them  
>> usable, a more abstract programming model is needed. One that fits  
>> naturally with the language and its usage. For example, see the  
>> excellent bindings for C# with MPI.NET from the University of  
>> Indiana http://www.osl.iu.edu/research/mpi.net/.
>>
>> If you look at this interface you'll find that many of its aspects  
>> are not even close to the way the existing MPI interfaces are  
>> defined. These differences have very good reason, they are to give  
>> better support for the language abstractions and be natural for the  
>> C# users.
>> For example, the entire MPI_Type* set of API's are not present in  
>> this interface as they've been abstracted away by the MPI.NET C#  
>> bindings. This enables a more natural use for the C# programmer  
>> like auto type-safety marshaling of any data type or calling  
>> collectives with a variable length string.
>>
>> I think that this level of interface is beyond the scope of the MPI  
>> forum and is more in the scope of the specific language experts.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> .Erez
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-mpi-21@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-mpi-21@mpi- 
>> forum.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Squyres
>> Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2007 8:55 AM
>> To: mpi-21@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: Re: [mpi-21] Call for MPI 2.2 and 3.0 agenda items for the  
>> Jan mee ting
>>
>> On Nov 30, 2007, at 10:44 PM, William Emmanuel S. Yu wrote:
>>
>>> That is right Jeff. Official Java Bindings would be a good first  
>>> step.
>>> The goal is to have "consistent" guidelines (standards) for library
>>> makers.
>>>
>>> What is the best way to go about this?
>>
>> All new MPI topics start with a proposal.  :-)
>>
>> But before you spend time on a proposal, you might want to ask the
>> community if they want official Java bindings.  There were strong
>> waves of apathy to prior attempts at standardizing Java bindings.
>>
>>> The Boost C++ implementation is
>>> pretty good but only works on ... well ... Boost. No plans to define
>>> something more consistent across the board? Or maybe this should be
>>> done by another group?
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're asking here.  The Boost MPI package is a  
>> fine
>> standalone package.  I don't see any reason to standardize it; MPI
>> already has basic-building-blocks C++ bindings.
>>
>> --
>> Jeff Squyres
>> Cisco Systems
>>
>
>
>