🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <698@oliver.analogy.UUCP> cmr@oliver.UUCP (Chesley Reyburn) writes:
>In article <TED.89May8134732@kythera.nmsu.edu> ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) writes:
>>In article <5421@hubcap.clemson.edu> billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,) writes:
>
>Can we describe
>a methodology that does not begin with a particular language?
>
Well, I don't know the answer this question, but I have a few
comments on language independent software engineering methodologies.

1) In a multicomputer environment, one needs s/w components which
are scalable.  Scalable in the sense that a particular component
can be replicated (in a linear fashion concommitant with the #
of processors in the system), and executed in a massively parallel
environment.  In the case of numerical computations, there are
plenty of implementations for all sorts of algorithms.  I don't know
about you, but I don't particularly like to code, so I'd just use
a pre-existing package (like IMSL) to solve my problem.  Now,
there is a library for the IPSC-II Hypercube which solves your
standard numerical problems.  Is it architecture independent?
Meaning that I can take the source code, replace the Intel OS
calls with calls from another OS for message passing, etc. and
run the software straight away?
Is it linearly scalable?  Do I get n-times single cpu performance
when I run it on n processors (save for communication bound problems).
I don't know?

2) The trick is not only to wrap the domain expertise into the component,
but to make that component scalable.  Clearly, without any knowledge
of linearly scalable s/w components, the entire multicomputer technology
might just as well not exist.  This is a problem.  One can not continue
to create toxic waste dump software programs and expect to have the
engineering effort be reuseable without applying knowledge of the target
architecture.

3) All I can say about methodologies for multicomputer systems is that
one must have s/w engineering discipline, believe in structured design
principles, and attempt to organize scalable software by assessing
requirements.  Whether or not this process can be built into a domain
engineering system is another matter.  Manually at least, it works because
this is exactly what I do.  In both C, Fortran, and eventually C++.
>Chesley Reyburn                 ...tektronix!ogccse!cvedc!cmr
--rick
-- 
Richard M. Stein (aka Rick 'Transputer' Stein)
Office of Research Computing @ The Ohio Supercomputer Center
Ghettoblaster Vacuum Cleaner Architect
Internet: stein@pixelpump.osc.edu