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Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

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Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#21

Post by pjin »

VMG wrote: post #4

The C++ versions were compiled using gcc version 4.4.5 using the compiler flags “-O6 – lpthread”. Isn't -O6 the same as -O3 ?

Fortran compilers (gcc has a Fortran 95 frontend) have long offered optimization levels beyond -O3; i.e., -O6 is a decent upper bound among popular free and commercial compilers, not just gcc/gfortran. The author probably came from a HPC background where -O6 is commonly used for compatibility among such a variety of compilers, even when writing C and C++ programs. Technically not the most portable way to build, but it works.

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#22

Post by FabricPaul »

nphase wrote: post #3

Fabric Server isn't available to play with?

Hi there - not yet. We are going to start the alpha release very soon though. You can play with the client-side stuff though - it's essentially the same system. If you sign up to the newsletter you will get notification when we drop the FE Server stuff

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#23

Post by FabricPaul »

allertonm wrote: post #5

Not that it diminishes the interestingness of this post (quite the opposite), but it's worth noting that this is not achieved using plain-vanilla JavaScript. From the product page: "The high-performance parts of the application are written using a performance-specific extension to JavaScript, called KL (Kernel Language). This language is similar in scope and syntax to JavaScript, but has some key differences that opt…

Hi there - yes, it's partly about marketing message. When we did early validation, people were concerned about a 'custom language' - the reality is that the majority of the application is written in JS - the performance parts are in KL. KL itself is almost identical to JS, but right now you have to declare types. In the future we may switch to inferred types, at which point code will be indistinguishable from JS. Just don't use closures :)

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#24

Post by FabricPaul »

Game_Ender wrote: post #18
allertonm wrote: post #5

Not that it diminishes the interestingness of this post (quite the opposite), but it's worth noting that this is not achieved using plain-vanilla JavaScript. From the product page: "The high-performance parts of the application are written using a performance-specific extension to JavaScript, called KL (Kernel Language). This language is similar in scope and syntax to JavaScript, but has some key differences that opt…

I would agree. To me it looks they have made an easier way to create programs that process data in parallel efficiently and made it easy to use them from dynamic languages. It's not so much "java script is as fast as C++", but "our system is a fast as C++ and you can use it from java script". They are using "Node.js" and "JavaScript" in title for the marketing angle if anything, because people don't use Node.js and J…

This is accurate - our intent is to do the same thing with Ruby and Django. We are doing additional work on the server side so that it makes more sense to work with node.

We picked node as a first target because we were already using it for our client-side work - it was a very fast integration.

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#25

Post by FabricPaul »

ravloony wrote: post #10

So this software involves installing a plugin in the browser? In an age where users are being warned by the browser makers themselves to be careful about that sort of thing? I can't see this ending well.

Hi there - it depends on who you're targeting. Our client-side focus is on native developers looking for high-performance in web applications e.g. medical visualization http://vimeo.com/31970502 - the benefits of web applications are great, but performance is the current limiting factor.

We are likely to build support for NaCl in the future.

On the server-side, there is no requirement for a client to install a plug-in - it's for high-performance on the server i.e. semantic analysis, compute bound problems etc

Last point - we also think a lot about hybrid models where performance can be accessed on both client and server. This is much longer term, but the design of Fabric allows for it.

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#26

Post by FabricPaul »

master wrote: post #8
allertonm wrote: post #5

Not that it diminishes the interestingness of this post (quite the opposite), but it's worth noting that this is not achieved using plain-vanilla JavaScript. From the product page: "The high-performance parts of the application are written using a performance-specific extension to JavaScript, called KL (Kernel Language). This language is similar in scope and syntax to JavaScript, but has some key differences that opt…

Any ideas on how this model compares to HipHop (Facebook's PHP-to-C system)?

This is our first 'proper' benchmark - we are going to work on some other problems for comparison. We're getting impressive results with semantic analysis, so we'll publish some results there soon.

Fabric is most impressive when problems lend themselves well to parallelism - this first benchmark test is ridiculously good for us. Other tests are likely to vary significantly - however, even single-threaded we are running fast.

Another note - right now the only parallelism model we offer is the dependency graph, which is great for some problems (particular in 3D). As we move to other models for the server (like MapReduce), we may see better performance for certain classes of problem.

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#27

Post by FabricPaul »

FabricPaul wrote: post #25
ravloony wrote: post #10

So this software involves installing a plugin in the browser? In an age where users are being warned by the browser makers themselves to be careful about that sort of thing? I can't see this ending well.

Hi there - it depends on who you're targeting. Our client-side focus is on native developers looking for high-performance in web applications e.g. medical visualization http://vimeo.com/31970502 - the benefits of web applications are great, but performance is the current limiting factor. We are likely to build support for NaCl in the future. On the server-side, there is no requirement for a client to install a plug-i…

p.s. you can see our sample client-side apps here: http://vimeo.com/groups/fabric/videos and play with them at http://demos.fabric-engine.com

You can how we've extended Fabric to include existing C++ libraries - great for custom data types, streaming data etc

It is not really a consumer web technology - we're acutely aware of the plug-in friction/antipathy. However - if you want HPC in the browser, this is one of the only ways to do it.

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#29

Post by FabricPaul »

tantalor wrote: post #28

Is Fabric Engine commercial software? If so, the authors of this post ought to disclose their interests as the owners.

Hi there - apologies. Fabric is a commercial company. Fabric Engine will be free for non-commercial use - we're currently in beta so pricing is not yet finalized. I assumed the username 'FabricPaul' was a good indication, but thanks for calling it out.

Re: Nodejs+Fabric as fast as multi-threaded C++

#30

Post by rbranson »

allertonm wrote: post #5

Not that it diminishes the interestingness of this post (quite the opposite), but it's worth noting that this is not achieved using plain-vanilla JavaScript. From the product page: "The high-performance parts of the application are written using a performance-specific extension to JavaScript, called KL (Kernel Language). This language is similar in scope and syntax to JavaScript, but has some key differences that opt…

Right... this would be a lot more interesting if they picked existing open source implementations and ran them unmodified. It's not like people can drop their unmodified software into this and make it scream like what V8 did to plain JavaScript performance.
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