Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!system
From: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson))
Subject: Re: ftn 10.8.p serious problems / tirade (again)
Message-ID: <1991Apr6.141254.12054@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
References: <1991Apr3.230735.9578@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> <HANCHE.91Apr5200543@hufsa.imf.unit.no>
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1991 14:12:54 GMT

In article <HANCHE.91Apr5200543@hufsa.imf.unit.no> hanche@imf.unit.no (Harald Hanche-Olsen) writes:
>In article <1991Apr3.230735.9578@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (System Admin (Mike Peterson)) writes:
>   2) where the **** are the DN10000 compiler beta testers?
>
>Here is one.  I don't think it's fair to blame the state of the
>compilers on the beta testers.  Their role is not to perform extensive
>and comprehensive testing of the system ...

I am not necessarily blaming beta sites, but I would have expected that
beta sites would exercise a product heavily - in your case, using C more
than f77 means that you don't abuse the ftn compiler as much, which may be
giving HPollo a false impression of the robustness of the compiler.
Also, do you compile everything with '-O' or even '-W0,-opt,4' ('-O4')?
Since FORTRAN is usually used for number crunching, having programs/libraries
that are compiled without at least '-O' is rather pointless.
We have 3 compiler-breaker packages that I always try to compile with
a new compiler including Gaussian 88 (which HPollo has in-house), and the 
NCAR library (which HPollo could easily get).

>   We are finding
>   problems within 24 hours of installing the compilers, but that seems to
>   be story of our life with HP/Apollo :-(.
>
>Not an unknown feeling.  This is one reason why we volunteered to help
>with beta testing.  Maybe you should try to volunteer yourself for
>beta testing the next release?

We actually had one version of the 10.8 ftn beta compiler which we
needed to compile Gaussian 88. I did try it on other packages,
but had to give up after finding 2 bad optimizer bugs, 1 of which is
remarkably similar to the major problem I described. We have volunteered
to beta test things like ftn, but there has been no response; I think
HPollo would rather that a large heavy object fell on our site :-).
I can not beta test SR10.x.p (although we end up doing that anyways)
since that machine is our central system supporting almost all our users.

Mike.
-- 
Mike Peterson, System Administrator, U/Toronto Department of Chemistry
E-mail: system@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca
Tel: (416) 978-7094                  Fax: (416) 978-8775
