Re: [boost] [Boost-users] What's so cool about Boost.MPI?

Subject: Re: [boost] [Boost-users] What's so cool about Boost.MPI?
From: Sid Sacek (ssacek_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-11-10 02:05:43

On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 3:37 AM, Matthias Troyer <troyer_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> Nice summary!
> Dave Abrahams

I've been meaning to ask you... ( after reading your web page in a rushed manner )

How is your library different from RPC? Unless I missed the point, the library efficiently delivers data to a receiver so that it can process it offline. If you can, please, point out some important points that I may not have grokked, (I mean other than the network and OS abstraction-layer).

Also, do you believe that efficiency in data transmission is important? Usually, headers of serialized data adds about 5% overhead, unless data packets are small. The internet and local networks are about 10-gigabit, and are pushing into the 100-gigabit range now. By the time you get a lot of programmers coding to the library, the networks and CPU's will be so fast, I hardly think the small overheads will make any difference. One thing I've noticed for a decade now is that networks are an order or two magnitudes faster than computers, I mean, networks deliver data way faster than a computer can process it.

Thanks,
-Sid Sacek