Am 23.01.2014 20:34, schrieb Ben Cumming:
On Thursday, 23 January 2014 at 11:50:19 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
Why not just generate SPIR, HSAIL or PTX code instead ?
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Paulo
We advertised an internship at my work to look at using D for GPUs in
HPC (I work at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, which recently
acquired are rather large GPU-based system). We do a lot of C++
meta-programming to generate portable code that works on both CPU and
GPUs. D looks like it could make this much less of a pain (because C++
meta programming gets very tired after a short while). From what I can
see, it should be possible to use CTFE and string mixins to generate
full OpenCL kernels from straight D code.
I did an internship at CERN during 2003-2004. Lots of interesting C++
being used there as well.
One of the main issues we also have with C++ is that our users are
intimidated by it, and exposure to the nasty side effects libraries
written with meta programming do little to convince them (like the error
messages, and the propensity for even the best-designed C++ library to
leak excessive amounts of boiler plate and templates into user code).
I still like C++, but with C++14 and whatever might come in C++17 it
might just be too much for any sane developer. :\
Unfortunately this is a field where Fortran is still the dominant language.
Yep, ATLAS still had lots of it.
The LLVM backend supports PTX generation, and Clang has full support for
OpenGL. With those tools and some tinkering with the compiler, it might
be possible to do some really neat things in D. And increase programmer
productivity at the same time. Fortran sets the bar pretty low there!
If anybody knows undergrad or masters students in Europe who would be
interested in a fully paid internship to work with D on big computers,
get them in touch with us!
I'll pass the info around.
--
Paulo
