"the multi-core "crisis" " My fault again.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Adam L Beberg <beberg () stanford edu>
Date: June 5, 2007 4:40:37 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: U.S. colleges retool programming classes

Sorry Dave, I just can't let the multi-core "crisis" comment stand
without a reply. That false meme needs to die.

I work on Folding@home, which is a 250K-node distributed system, where
each node is now days a dual-core at minimum, an 8-core Cell on avg, or
at maximum an on chip cluster of SMP elements with 1000's of threads in
a NUMA setup of vector processors in the new GPUs. Nominally we have a
1M+core system operating as a coordinated whole.

The idea that 64 cores is a problem is patently absurd. Complex on many
levels? Sure. CS not available by the 80's? No - the 64-node Caltech
Cosmic Cube was in 1981. Wall in sight for multi-core? Nope maybe at 1B
cores, I'll keep you posted. GPU compilers ready for mainstream? Give
them another year. Courses to learn this stuff? Already out there.

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT DAVID FARBER. How can we have a crisis when you
and your friends went and solved all these problems so long ago! Way to
ruin to for the rest of us.

There is a real crisis. Intel and friends surpassed what home and
business users need for their video chat, Excel, and web surfing some
year ago and now Moore's law is working on price - oh oh. The 8-core Mac
Pro in my lab "feels" slower then my home Athlon64 for normal tasks
(it's amazing for folding of course) because I have a faster hard drive
in it, the CPU has never been the bottleneck, it's always been I/O.
Gamers are not seeing the difference between 200fps and 300fps. Vista is
also a big flop so no help from the software bloat.

Why upgrade if it will not feel faster? That's why the industry is in a
panic. That's what the multi-core "crisis" is about.

- Adam L. Beberg

David Farber wrote on 6/4/2007 11:35 AM:
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Andrew W. Donoho" <awd () DDG com>
> It is very clear that the software industry is going to hit a  
> programming wall some time in the next 6 years (4 Moore's Law  
> generations). Microprocessors are going to progress from 4 to 64  
> processor cores. Most algorithms, other than the embarrassingly  
> parallel ones, will hit this wall. This wall is not going to be  
> surmounted by 'code monkeys'. To truly exploit this coming surfeit  
> of processors, we will need both architectural and software  
> invention. This problem will need 'classically trained' disciplined  
> thinkers. While I was not trained as a computer scientist  
> (experimental physics was my field), the problem is going to need  
> folks of the caliber that originally defined our core  
> architectures. (The next Johnny Von Neumann, I'm looking for you.)  
> In other words, we are entering an era of unprecedented  
> architectural research and invention opportunity.


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