[squeak-dev] Re: GPGPU

Casimiro de Almeida Barreto casimiro.barreto at gmail.com
Wed Oct 28 04:51:49 UTC 2009


Em 28-10-2009 02:14, Andreas Raab escreveu:
> Casimiro de Almeida Barreto wrote:
>> I'm considering to build a package to allow the development of math
>> using GPUs (NVIDIA). Would like to know about general interest in this
>> topic and some guidelines to put it in squeak trunk.
>
> I'm only responding to the trunk question here since I can't speak for
> others about their GPGPU interests (I have a floating interest in it
> but I've never spent much time trying things out).
>
> For the trunk inclusion, I think that at this point we're trying to
> get the trunk smaller rather than larger. Even though we have been
> adding a few packages, most of them were low-impact and very
> high-value for the community at large (think syntax highlighting for
> example). Outside of that we're trying to make things unloadable so
> that the trunk can actually get smaller instead of larger. From this
> point of view the inclusion of a GPGPU package seems unlikely.
The idea is not really "include/put in trunk" (since the idea of trunk
was so well expressed in above paragraphs and previous discussions in
this list) but avoiding to create something that brings conflict
(dependencies, use of deprecated stuff, etc).

GPGPU stuff is not essential and I don't think it will impact other
packages except for the need to use FFI or alien. Since CUDA has not MIT
license and up to the moment OpenCL is "Apple stuff" (regarding to
license) and is no more than a framework, one possible approach is to
use Open GL Mesa/glew/glut to get things done. Up to the moment FFI is
the choice since it works well with trunk. I guess that if FFI keeps ok
with trunk I'll have no problems.

Well. It's 02:51AM so I guess I'll take a nap... :D
>
> However, there is an open question of what set of packages we will
> redistribute with the next release and how to determine what should be
> in that set of packages. We haven't really had this discussion - there
> are some open question as to which mechanism to use, so I would say
> that if you'd like to have your package be ready for distribution with
> the next Squeak release you:
> a) Register the project on http://www.squeaksource.com/
> b) Develop it and invite others to join you
> c) Make sure that it works well and that people are aware of it
>
> In particular considering the last point, when the time comes to
> discuss this issue you have something to point to, something that
> hopefully others use as well, that will be compelling and an obvious
> choice for distribution.
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>
>
Cheers,

CdAB

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