[Beowulf] newbie

Prentice Bisbal prentice at ias.edu
Mon May 4 07:53:32 PDT 2009


Chris Samuel wrote:
> ----- "Mike Davis" <jmdavis1 at vcu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Also, a particular code may run much better with
>> one "optimized" compiler than another. I have some
>> that require PGI to run at all.
> 
> This is one of our main reasons we maintain multiple
> commercial compilers - letting our users easily build
> code that is dependent on a specific compiler.
> 
> I suspect the cost of the compiler easily outweighs
> the cost of our time to try and help them get it
> working (if possible), not to mention the potential
> opportunity "cost" to the researchers of them giving
> up on HPC because they can't get it to work and it
> doesn't occur to them to ask for help.

I second that. On more than one occasion, I spent weeks trying to get
code to compile using the compilers on hand before giving up and
spending $$ on a commercial compiler which compiled the code w/o any
problems.

In an ideal world, the code/Makefiles/configure scripts would written
such that any standards-compliant compiler would work, but that's not
always the case.

-- 
Prentice



More information about the Beowulf mailing list