Re: [boost] [compute] kernels as strings impairs readability and maintainability

Subject: Re: [boost] [compute] kernels as strings impairs readability and maintainability
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-12-23 19:38:38

On 23 Dec 2014 at 11:21, Kyle Lutz wrote:

> For instance, we can dynamically build programs at run-time by
> combining algorithmic skeletons (such as reduce or scan) with custom
> user-defined reduction functions and produce optimized kernels for the
> actual platform that executes the code (which in fact can be
> dramatically different hardware than where Boost.Compute itself was
> compiled). It also allows us to automatically tune algorithm
> parameters for the actual hardware present at run-time (and also
> allows us to execute currently algorithms as efficiently as possible
> on future hardware platforms by re-tuning and scaling up parameters,
> all without any recompilation). It also allows us to generate fully
> specialized kernels at run-time based on
> dynamic-input/user-configuration (imagine user-created filter
> pipelines in Photoshop or custom database queries in PGSQL).

Back when I was planning something very like Compute some years ago, 
I was going to make a C++ metaprogramming based clang AST 
manipulator. The idea was that you'd use libclang to hold the OpenCL 
kernels as an in memory AST, and you'd write C++ which when executed 
transformed the ASTs rather like Boost.Python.

clang, if I remember, has a full fat OpenCL to LLVM compiler, and 
better still that works as expected in gdb. I figured it should be 
possible to integrate a debugger frontend for that so you could 
breakpoint and debug your C++-as-OpenCL nicely.

It's a much bigger project than yours of course. And one rendered a 
bit obsolete by the rise of C++ AMP. Still, food for thought.

Niall

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