Code Reuse

From HPCBugBase

Contents 1 Defect Type Description 2 Entries 3 Advice 4 Symptom 5 Other Findings and Contexts

[edit] Defect Type Description

This defect type is intended to cover defects related to a failure to adopt existing code. Code reuse is a common problem theme of software engineering. In HPC, while there are numerous libraries available for common algorithms such as numerical linear algebra solvers, random number generators and signal processing, people tend to want to implement their own solution. Even if an algorithm is simple when it is written as sequential code, it may be hard to parallelize, and getting good performance out of that may be even harder.

It is difficult to figure out what libraries could help them because there's a lot of cruddy code around.

[edit] Entries

• Linear equation solvers, Gaussian elimination, eigenvalue-type routines, FFT, etc.

[edit] Advice

• There are a few resources around to look for existing code. For example, NIST has something called Guide to Available Mathematical Software. It takes effort to keep the list up-to-date.
• A very short conversation with an expert can be useful.

[edit] Symptom

[edit] Other Findings and Contexts