[Mpi3-abi] ABI: for languages?

[Jeff Squyres]

On Sep 12, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Erez Haba wrote:

>>>> is there some other perceived gain beyond MPI-based ISV apps  
>>>> being able to conveniently ship a single binary?
>
> Yes there is.
> We discussed one example during the MPI conference. There is a great  
> benefit for tools, especially for tools that are using the PMPI  
> interface.
> Many implementers ship their mpi implementation as a dynamically  
> loaded binary; vendors like Microsoft, Intel HP and others. As such  
> it is more difficult for tools to plugin between the application and  
> the mpi implementation; it is not impossible but still more difficult.

I guess it depends on the type of tool, no?  The parallel debuggers  
have gotten along fine without an ABI because they don't hook in at  
the MPI API layer.  Alternate mechanisms exist for them to find out  
the exact value of MPI_COMM_WORLD (for example).  Expansions of this  
concept are just being introduced into MPI-3.0 for other kinds of  
tools, too.

But if there are oodles of PMPI-based tools that want an ABI, I would  
encourage them to publicly speak out -- just like anyone who both  
wants and will actually use an ABI should publicly speak out.

> Having an API allows MPI implementers, ISV's, tools developers and  
> end user to verify the application with a tool like ISP (University  
> of Utha), without the special need from any of the other parties.

I think you mean ABI, right?


-- 
Jeff Squyres
Cisco Systems