HPFPC Lecture meeting inviting Dr. John Reid

HPF Promoting Consortium (HPFPC) will hold a lecture meeting on Co-Array Fortran
inviting Dr. John Reid, convener of the ISO Fortran Committee.
The meeting will be open to anyone and participation fee is free. Please join us.

For inquiries or information, please contact us via email, apply@hpfpc.org.

Organizer: High Performance Fortran Promoting Consortium (HPFPC)

Co-organized by
The 21st Century Center of Excellence Program,
Informatics Research Center for Development of Knowledge Society Infrastructure
http://i.coe21.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index_e.html

Date and Time: October 30, 2006 13:00-16:30

Place: Lecture Room, the 3rd Floor of the North Build.,
Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University
http://www.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/access/index.php#n_bldg

Speaker: Prof. John Reid,
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK,
and Convener of the ISO Fortran Committee

Title: Co-arrays to be included in the next Fortran Standard

Abstract: Co-arrays provide a simple parallel extension of Fortran. The extension assumes the SPMD (single program, multiple data) programming model with the program replicated a fixed number of times. Each copy is called an image.

The normal set of subscripts refers to memory addresses within an image while a second set of subscripts gives access to memory addresses in another image.
Each image executes asynchronously with explicit synchronization provided by the programmer.

The additional syntax requires support in the compiler, but it has been designed to be easy to implement and to give the compiler scope both to apply its optimizations within each image and to optimize the communication between images. This is borne out by experience with Cray implementations.

For these reasons, the ISO Fortran Committee decided in May 2005 to include co-arrays in the next revision of the standard. It is our belief that the wide adoption of this extension, compared with other parallel programming models, will lead to easier program development, faster execution times, and better program maintainability, particularly where the number of processes is large.

While co-arrays have been written as an extension of Fortran 2003, the only feature that is extensively used is allocatable components of derived types, which are efficient, easy to understand and available in Fortran 95 compilers. It is possible that co-arrays will be made available as extensions of Fortran 95 compilers before they are extended to the whole of Fortran 2003.

In this talk, we will assume familiarity only with Fortran 77. The features of Fortran 95 that are needed will be explained as part of the talk.

[HPFPC Top Page]

Organizer:	High Performance Fortran Promoting Consortium (HPFPC)
Co-organized by	The 21st Century Center of Excellence Program, Informatics Research Center for Development of Knowledge Society Infrastructure http://i.coe21.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index_e.html
Date and Time:	October 30, 2006 13:00-16:30
Place:	Lecture Room, the 3rd Floor of the North Build., Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University http://www.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/access/index.php#n_bldg
Speaker:	Prof. John Reid, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, and Convener of the ISO Fortran Committee
Title:	Co-arrays to be included in the next Fortran Standard
Abstract:	Co-arrays provide a simple parallel extension of Fortran. The extension assumes the SPMD (single program, multiple data) programming model with the program replicated a fixed number of times. Each copy is called an image. The normal set of subscripts refers to memory addresses within an image while a second set of subscripts gives access to memory addresses in another image. Each image executes asynchronously with explicit synchronization provided by the programmer. The additional syntax requires support in the compiler, but it has been designed to be easy to implement and to give the compiler scope both to apply its optimizations within each image and to optimize the communication between images. This is borne out by experience with Cray implementations. For these reasons, the ISO Fortran Committee decided in May 2005 to include co-arrays in the next revision of the standard. It is our belief that the wide adoption of this extension, compared with other parallel programming models, will lead to easier program development, faster execution times, and better program maintainability, particularly where the number of processes is large. While co-arrays have been written as an extension of Fortran 2003, the only feature that is extensively used is allocatable components of derived types, which are efficient, easy to understand and available in Fortran 95 compilers. It is possible that co-arrays will be made available as extensions of Fortran 95 compilers before they are extended to the whole of Fortran 2003. In this talk, we will assume familiarity only with Fortran 77. The features of Fortran 95 that are needed will be explained as part of the talk.