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

[Purushotham Bangalore <puri@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

If there is an interest in organizing a workshop, we could consider HPDC 2008 is in Boston from June 23-27, 2008. The deadline for Workshop Proposals is December 10, 2007 (next Monday). 

I am willing to take the lead and submit a proposal if I can find at least 8-10 people willing to be on the program committee and review papers. We don't need to have full papers, short papers could be sufficient.

The focus of this workshop would be to hear experiences from the following types of users:

(a) end users (application developers)
(b) implementors
(c) tool builders and ISVs
(d) educators

We need to indicate what we are interested to hear from these users with some specific questions/guidelines for each user category. 

Of course we can do this as a standalone conference/workshop without going with an established conference. Euro PVM/MPI may be little late since it is in September. Any suggestions?


W.r.t the questionnaire, we can start putting the questions together once we have a wiki, everyone on the forum can add appropriate questions and someone needs to consolidate at the end. Of course the questionnaire need to be targeted to each user category instead of a generic one for all.


Puri


----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Ericsson-Zenith" <steven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: mpi-21@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, December 3, 2007 9:51:30 AM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago
Subject: Re: [mpi-21] Call for MPI 2.2 and 3.0 agenda items for the Jan meeting


I agree with Jeff's suggestion. Certainly quantification is good where  
it is possible and makes sense. A brief targeted questionnaire would  
be most useful.

To implement this we need to decide if we want a meeting or to set up  
a group of us to do the survey and analysis.

I didn't see a lot of support for a User Experience meeting.

With respect,
Steven

--
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering
http://iase.info
http://senses.info



On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:26 AM, Jeff Squyres wrote:

> An excellent idea (survey the users).
>
> Might I suggest that if we survey the users, don't just give them an  
> open-ended "what do you want?" question, but rather a series of  
> targeted questions that have quantifiable answers.  You can follow  
> it at the end with an open-ended question ("Is there anything else  
> you want from an ABI that was not covered above?") to catch anything  
> that was missed, such as whacky user ideas that the Forum hasn't  
> thought of.
>
> My point is that if we collect data from users, it would be most  
> helpful to have as much of it in a quantifiable form as possible.   
> Having lots of data is one thing; having lots of data that is easy  
> to analyze and understand is a different thing -- questions must be  
> specifically setup to obtain this goal.
>
> I would also suggest that such a questionnaire should easily be  
> hostable on www.mpi-fourm.org.  :-)
>
>
>
> On Dec 3, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Terry Dontje wrote:
>
>> I agree with Jeff that this ABI topic can be a blackhole,  
>> definitely lots areas one could attack.
>> However, I've had some requests from ISV's that an ABI would be  
>> helpful.  Because of that I
>> think Steven's idea of surveying the users of MPI may allow us to  
>> clarify what users really want
>> when they ask for an ABI.  It may also be useful to encourage the  
>> users wanting the ABI to attend
>> one of the Forum meetings so a discussion can be had.
>> Note by users I mean application developers using the MPI API.   
>> This would include the group of
>> ISVs, Government Labs or other corporations that may use the API.
>>
>> --td
>>
>> Jeff Squyres wrote:
>>> On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:05 AM, Supalov, Alexander wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think the ABI topic should be accompanied by definition of the
>>>> validation/certification procedure, be that a comprehensive test  
>>>> suite
>>>> with predefined outcomes or such. Having a common ABI and still  
>>>> behaving
>>>> differently on some applications won't help customers move  
>>>> between MPI
>>>> implementations, which is a common ABI is primarily intended for.
>>>
>>> I think that if we start defining the specific interpretations of  
>>> the MPI standard, it will result in a black hole of despair.  In  
>>> pragmatic terms, there are many places where the MPI spec could be  
>>> clarified to get more consistent behavior from all the various MPI  
>>> implementations.  In many other places, the Forum intentionally  
>>> left the decision up to the implementor.
>>>
>>>> By the
>>>> way, the ABI extends beyond the function interface - it includes  
>>>> library
>>>> naming, process startup, etc.
>>>
>>> This is also a tangled pit of woe.
>>>
>>> These are two reasons that I am not optimistic about an ABI.
>>>
>>>> About the Java, C#, and other "new" interfaces: if they are really
>>>> necessary, the Forum for me is the only place where "official" MPI
>>>> bindings can be approved. They may be developed elsewhere, but if
>>>> somebody want their binding to achieve that status, they should  
>>>> come up
>>>> with a proposal and work with or, better, in the Forum.
>>>
>>> Are there any languages that cannot have 3rd party MPI bindings by  
>>> layering on top of C MPI bindings?
>>>
>>> Re-stating a mantra: it's very suspicious for a vendor or  
>>> researcher to say "I have an idea that *must* be standardized!"   
>>> It's much more useful to have real-world proof that applications  
>>> want/need it.  Many of the most successful aspects of MPI had  
>>> years of real-world experience behind them -- the standard was  
>>> just codifying what was already common practice.  Some of the  
>>> least successful aspects of MPI were done because they were a  
>>> "good idea" or had a political motivation, but lacked a reference  
>>> implementation or apps developers saying that they wanted it.
>>>
>>>> One worthy MPI-3 topic would be a new edition of the unified  
>>>> standard
>>>> document (MPI-1 + MPI-2 + MPI-3). It's just plain inconvenient to  
>>>> go
>>>> thru so many different books and, hopefully not for long, multiple
>>>> errata. I see that MPI-2 will be proofread for the January  
>>>> meeting. Is
>>>> there an intention to unify the standard documents later on?
>>>
>>> It would certainly be useful to do so.
>>>
>>>> Finally, there's this never dying controversy around making no  
>>>> MPI calls
>>>> and making progress (see the August-September discussion related  
>>>> to the
>>>> generalized requests, for one). Do we want to clarify this in the
>>>> standard once and forever in unambiguous terms? This may even be an
>>>> MPI-2.1 item, by the way.
>>>
>>>
>>> FWIW: user progress (generalized requests) and MPI core progress  
>>> are subtly different issues, IMHO.
>>>
>
>
> -- 
> Jeff Squyres
> Cisco Systems
>