[Mpi3-rma] RMA chapter for quick review

[Torsten Hoefler]

Bronis,

Thanks for your review! Comments inline below.

>> An updated version of the RMA chapter is attached to this mail and on  
>> the wiki. We would like to make it available to the Forum by tomorrow  
>> afternoon in order to meet the two-week window for the first reading at 
>> the March meeting. If you have a chance, please take a look at it and  
>> let us know your comments before tomorrow afternoon.
>
> I went through section 11.1 and found ticket 0 type changes.
> I don't know when I will have time to finish so if I hit
> something more significant I will just have to apologize.
They'll all be rolled into the large ticket for changing the chapter.

> Anyway, using [p#, l#] notation:
>
> [1, 20]: fix split infinitive: to access or update => to access or to update
fixed

> [1, 21-23]: I would like to remove the personification of the
> processes in "However, processes may not know which data in their own  
> memory need to be accessed or updated by remote processes, and may not  
> even know the identity of these processes." Processes do not "know";
> however, I have not thought of good alternative wording yet. Perhaps:
> "However, a process may not necessarily be able to compute what data
> in its local memory that remote processes need to access or even the
> identity of those processes."
Your proposal still personifies the processes. I don't see a good
alternative either, thus, I'll leave it unchanged for now. I'm open to
suggestions!

> [1, 26]: Clarify antecedent: This may => This distribution may
fixed

> [1, 27]: Fix split infinitives and dangling preposition:
> 
> to periodically poll for potential communication requests to receive and  
> act upon. =>
>
> to poll for potential communication requests to receive and upon which  
> to act periodically.
fixed

> [1, 35-38]: In the list: "MPI_PUT (remote write), MPI_GET (remote read),  
> [and] MPI_ACCUMULATE (remote update), MPI_GET_ACCUMULATE, 
> MPI_FETCH_AND_OP
> (remote read and update), MPI_COMPARE_AND_SWAP (remote atomic swap  
> operations), MPI_RPUT, MPI_RGET, MPI_RACCUMULATE and 
> MPI_RGET_ACCUMULATE";
> it is odd that a subset of the operations have parenthetical expressions
> that indicate the nature of the functionality. Either all operations
> should be followed with a parenthetical explanation or none of them.
> The right solution is probably to reformat into a list with each
> item being the group of operations that provide functionality of the
> same nature (e.g., I am guessing that MPI_GET and MPI_RGET are both
> remote read operations). Initially I thought the ones that are not
> followed by a parenthetical expression were being grouped with the
> following one that has the parenthetical expression (so MPI_GET_ACCUMULATE
> is a remote read and update operation). However, the list ends with
> several operations with no following parenthetical expression. Anyway,
> the implicit grouping is unclear. Making it explicit would be better.
> It would also simplify how the following sentence ("When a reference is  
> made to “accumulate” operations in this chapter, it refers to the  
> following operations: MPI_ACCUMULATE, MPI_GET_ACCUMULATE, 
> MPI_FETCH_AND_OP,
> MPI_COMPARE_AND_SWAP, MPI_RACCUMULATE and MPI_RGET_ACCUMULATE.") simpler.
Ok, I added the descriptions to the R-operations.

> [1, 44-45] Use active voice: correct ordering of memory accesses has to
> be imposed by the user, using synchronization calls; => the user must
> impose correct ordering of memory accesses through synchronization calls;
fixed

> [2, 8] Change: "operations, communication coprocessors, etc." to
> "operations, and communication coprocessors." The clause begins
> with "such as" so the "etc." is redundant (not to mention caused
> the omission of the period that should end the sentence).
fixed

> [2, 12] Use active voice: "However, support for asynchronous communication
> agents in software (handlers, threads, etc.) might be needed, for certain
> RMA functions, in a distributed memory environment." => "However, certain
> RMA functions might need support for asynchronous communication agents in
> software (handlers, threads, etc.) in a distributed memory environment."
I'll defer this one for now because it doesn't seem essential and it's a
macro-mess :).

Generally, I fear that it will be a lot of work if we're trying to fix
all the little wording things in the OS chapter. Many of them (most of
the ones you found) have been there since MPI-2 and are in the places
that we didn't want to touch. It might be better to not apply such
changes at this point so that reviewers can focus on the semantic
changes (and not have colored sections all over the document).

I'll upload shortly!

Thanks & All the Best,
  Torsten

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Torsten Hoefler         | Performance Modeling and Simulation Lead
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