[gmx-developers] libgromacs vs libgromacs_core?

[Erik Lindahl]

I have a more appropriate modern one about the real C++ nightmare:

With C++, you accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot.
Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me over there."

Cheers,

Erik


On Sep 28, 2013, at 8:44 PM, Szilárd Páll <szilard.pall at cbr.su.se> wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Mark Abraham <mark.j.abraham at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 28, 2013 at 7:48 PM, Szilárd Páll <szilard.pall at cbr.su.se> wrote:
>> 
>>>> This is an important point, but doesn't Jenkins help by compiling with older
>>>> compilers as well as state of the art?
>>> 
>>> Not really - at least not in the current setup. We do not and probably
>>> will not include in our builds compilers like pgi, pathscale, xlc,
>>> Fujitsu C compiler, and other embedded compilers. It's not entirely
>>> trivial to predict what the future is e.g. if Tilera come up with a
>>> promising HPC platform or the IBM + NVIDIA (ref: Open Power) marriage
>>> results in a new fancy machine (which are not out of the question, not
>>> even in the 12 months time-frame), it may take quite some effort to
>>> strip away the portability bottlenecks just to compile mdrun on such a
>>> machine, let alone start optimizing for it.
>> 
>> I think our portability and language requirements are so conservative
>> that discussing the hypothetical scenario of putative non-portable
>> code in GROMACS coping badly with unknown non-standard-compliant
>> hardware/compiler/libraries is not going to help us at this time. The
>> general problem is unsolvable. We're good at solvable problems when we
>> know we have them.
> 
> We are drifting off-topic, but hey...
> 
> I believe, it is not a hypothetical scenario. Compared to the amount
> of C in HPC expertise in the current developer team (AFAIK) only a
> small a fraction of such C++ in HPC knowledge exists. Hence, stating
> that all concerns raised are hypothetical is a bit like sticking our
> hands in the sand - exactly because IMHO the lack of concreteness
> stems from the lack of experience, and because "C++" and "easy" are
> not on the same page, perhaps not even in the same chapter.
> 
> Let me close with a Stroustrup quote which probably most people know:
> "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder,
> but when you do it blows your whole leg off."
> 
> Cheers,
> --
> Szilárd
> 
>> Mark
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