High Performance Fortran - Request for Comments

REQUEST FOR PUBLIC COMMENT ON HIGH PERFORMANCE FORTRAN




Invitation:


The High Performance Fortran Forum (HPFF), with participation from over 40
organizations, has been meeting for the last ten months to discuss and
define a set of extensions to Fortran called High Performance Fortran
(HPF). Our goal is to address the problems of writing data parallel
programs for architectures where the distribution of data impacts
performance. While we hope that the HPF extensions become widely
available, HPFF is not sanctioned or supported by any official standards
organization. At this time, HPFF invites general public review comments on
the initial version of the language draft.


The HPF language specification, version 0.4, is now available. This
document contains all the technical features proposed for the language. We
plan that version 1.0 of the HPF document will be available after mid
December. This version will be primarily an editorial improvement of
version 0.4, based on suggestions from public comment.


HPFF invites comments on the technical content of HPF, as well as on the
editorial presentation in the document. We ask that editorial comments on
version 0.4 be submitted before December 5 to allow incorporation into
version 1.0. After that, please base comments on form on version 1.0 if
possible. Comments on technical content may pertain to either version.




How to Get the Documents:


Electronic copies of the HPF language specification are available from
numerous sources.


        Anonymous FTP sources: Directory:
        titan.cs.rice.edu public/HPFF/draft
        think.com public/HPFF
        ftp.gmd.de hpf-europe
        theory.tc.cornell.edu pub
        minerva.npac.syr.edu public


        Email sources: First line of message:
        netlib@research.att.com send hpf-vxx.ps from hpff
        netlib@ornl.gov send hpf-vxx.ps from hpf
        softlib@cs.rice.edu send hpf-vxx.ps


The following formats are available (xx will be 04 or 10, depending on
version). Note that not all formats are available from all sources.
        hpf-vxx.dvi DVI file
        hpf-vxx.ps Postscript
        hpf-vxx.ps.Z Compressed Postscript
        hpf-vxx.tar Tar file of LaTeX version
        hpf-vxx.tar.Z Compressed tar file


For more detailed instructions, send email to hpff-info@cs.rice.edu. This
will return a message with expanded detail about accessing the above
document sources, as well as other information about HPFF.


We strongly encourage reviewers to obtain an electronic copy of the
document. However, if electronic access is impossible the draft is also
available in hard copy form as CRPC Technical Report #92225. This report is
available for $50 (copying/handling fee) from:


        Theresa Chatman
        CITI/CRPC, Box 1892
        Rice University
        Houston, TX 77251


Make checks payable to Rice University. This document will be sent surface
mail unless additional airmail postage is included in the payment.




How to Submit Comments:


HPFF encourages reviewers to submit comments as soon as possible, with a
deadline of February 15 for consideration. Please do not submit comments
for any version of the draft earlier than the 0.4 version.


Please send comments by email to hpff-comments@cs.rice.edu. To facilitate
the processing of comments we request that separate comment messages be
submitted for each chapter of the document and that the chapter be clearly
identified in the "Subject:" line of the message. Comments about general
overall impressions of the HPF document should be labeled as Chapter 1. All
comments on the language specification become the property of Rice
University.


If email access is impossible for comment responses, hard copy may be sent
to


        HPF Comments
        c/o Theresa Chatman
        CITI/CRPC, Box 1892
        Rice University
        Houston, TX 77251


HPFF plans to process the feedback received at a meeting in March. Best
efforts will be made to reply to comments submitted.




Sincerely,




Charles Koelbel
Rice University
HPFF Executive Director
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