71–80 of 110 posts
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Did the concept of SIMD even exist in 1971?
Vector processors date from 1960s, but the neceesary techniques for loop analysis (using Fourier-Motzkin method) was not found till 1990s.
Vectorizing compilers have been around since at least the late 1970s; the Cray 1[0] had a vectorizing compiler in 1978.
Lamport’s Parallel Execution of DO Loops[1] was published in 1974.
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Many years ago, I had a good friend named Frances who lamented the fact that people generally could not keep it straight that Frances is a girl's name and Francis is a boy's name. Rembering that friend, I clicked on the link to check the gender because people don't always follow the rules about such things and because I was short of sleep and wondering if I was even remembering that correctly. Given my reason for cli…
> the fact that people generally could not keep it straight that Frances is a girl's name and Francis is a boy's name. I literally just looked it up, because I wasn't sure. The simple rule presented is that if it's Franc e s with an e like in "her", then it's the name historically used for women, and if it's Franc i s with an i like in "him" then it's the name historically used for men. It truly is a shame that the f…
I think this isn't really the time or place to get into gender issues and the field of Computer Science, especially not for me. I see things very different from most other people here and that makes communication challenging.
In this case, that would amount to a terrible derail from the focus on honoring the work and life of Frances Allen.
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I’m sure you are just trying to share a memory of interacting with an illustrious colleague here - and my sympathies go to you as it’s always a shock to learn of the passing of someone you worked with. But I think you maybe need to work on how you present this anecdote - as it is, it reads like you tried to mansplain her own research to a Turing Award winner. I hope you approached with more humility than this telling…
Why is there an assumption that graycat is male? Was there an indication of gender?
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Did the concept of SIMD even exist in 1971?
I can’t think of any noteworthy idea in computing that didn’t exist in 1971.
Frances Allen wrote "A Catalogue of Optimizing Transformations" in 1971. 50 years(!!!) later, they are still the backbone of optimizing compilers. I think the only major thing missing is autovectorization. She was in her 30s when she wrote it.
I think you should read it if you work on compilers, even now. But the reason is a bit different. It was the survey of the state of the art at the time, but obviously it is not the state of the art now. Then why should you read it? Because it is written in two layers. The first layer goes, we tried many optimization ideas, but only these were effective in practice: inlining, register allocation, etc. Others were not.…
> graph coloring register allocation
I knew some people working on linear optimization, at the time one of the most performance-intensive applications around (with real money/competitiveness in many industries riding on it). The compiler that produced the best code, by quite a bit, was the IBM FORTRAN compiler (3090 was the preferred target at the time), which also didn't do graph coloring. It just allocated the registers by loops from innermost to outermost.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯\
For a simple compiler, we should also look at Wirth's works, and Wirth's rule: an optimization has to pay for itself, that is, the compiler compiling itself with the optimization both in the executable and in the source code has to be faster than without it in both places.
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I can’t think of any noteworthy idea in computing that didn’t exist in 1971.
The Single Static Assignment form was only created in 1988, which is apparently so late that compilers are still discovering it (and the optimizations it enables) as some novelty today. (Never even mind the Single Static Information form.) I wonder if part of the reason SSA is not implemented from the start by many compilers, is precisely because it came too late to be included in seminal works like A Catalogue of Op…
More seriously, my recollection (having been about 20 years since I last took a compilers course) is that it took a while for even researchers to be convinced of the advantages of SSA, as the transformation causes a quadratic blowup in code size for the worst case (but it turns out to be less in real-world cases).
Also Sussman & Steele proposed CPS in 1975 which is closely related to SSA.
Why doesn't the black bar link to the related submission?
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> the fact that people generally could not keep it straight that Frances is a girl's name and Francis is a boy's name. I literally just looked it up, because I wasn't sure. The simple rule presented is that if it's Franc e s with an e like in "her", then it's the name historically used for women, and if it's Franc i s with an i like in "him" then it's the name historically used for men. It truly is a shame that the f…
They've now added the black bar and substantive comments about her work are finally at the top of the discussion (instead of my relatively vacuous remark). I'm happy to see her getting a proper send off appropriate to her level of contributions to the field. I think this isn't really the time or place to get into gender issues and the field of Computer Science, especially not for me. I see things very different from…
It's worth noting that, according to the article, Frances Allen actually spent some time focusing on exactly that.
As important as distinguishing her work in the world of computing and programming, Fran was also committed to her team by embracing their ideas and synergies and, in particular, supporting women. She spent many years as a mentor through IBM’s mentor program.
...and later...
“Professionally, Fran spent a lifetime working to advance the field of computing and pioneer new breakthroughs. Personally, she was equally focused on inspiring and motivating young people – especially women – to do the same,” said Fran’s nephew, Ryan McKee, on the IEEE honor.
So I imagine she would be quite happy to have the topic brought up (at least in a positive manner) in discussion of her life and career.
That said, I brought that up to highlight her achievements and character, not to bring you into that conversation if you don't want to be in it, which is your choice, and I can see avoiding that topic as a useful strategy if you think it can't or won't be handled appropriately by the people involved. As such, don't feel compelled to respond about any of that if you don't want to. :)
Edit: It occurs to me now you might have been referring to something entirely different than I thought, in which case I wasn't trying to bring anything of that into the discussion at all, and my wording was purely an attempt to avoid that type of discussion as well.
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C and Unix hindered a whole lot. It was the PHP of its day.
Nice analogy. Although it's very unlikely that PHP will ever be as highly regarded as are C and Unix today.