Jepser, thank you for your detailed review. I expect, that I have to hand over all larger suggestions to the chapter authors and the typos may be handled after the official reading. Best regards Rolf On Wed, 2 Apr 2008 09:36:08 +0200 Jesper Larsson Traeff <traff_at_it.neclab.eu> wrote:

Dear All,

here are my belated comments to the merged MPI 1.2/PI 2.0 document as per of the Chicago Forum. Hope they are still useful, perhaps to the chapter editors. A lot of the typos and suggestions apply also to the already passed MPI 1.3 and MPI 2.1 documents, which I'm afraid are finalized now? Especially in the parts concerning the "old", "MPI-1" functionality, there is, in my opinion, quite a lot to be done for the document to work, as was also discussed at the meeting (deprecation of deprecated functions, C++ bindings, MPI-1.2 <-> MPI-2 contradictions, ...). In addition to what has been said, it would be good if some of us could take the time to make sure the examples are correct, effective (in getting the point across - some are very long, and somewhat hurried), and do not use deprecated functionality (there's a remark on p.25 that the examples have not been checked and verified - do we want this?). Now that this merge is being done, I think it is important that it will be done well, and we should take the time for this.

Best regards

Jesper

Two general consistency things: 0. count, rank, tag - should be "(nonnegative integer)" in all interface specs (in one-sided it is usually so, in pt2pt sometimes so, sometimes just "(integer)" 1. Is is "high quality" or "high-quality"?

ii, 15: [TYPO]: documnts -> documents

Chapter 1: [COMM]: In general all the contrasting of MPI-1/MPI-2 reads very awkward. Eg. Section 1.2 should be completely eliminated. p.1,l.28 [TYPO]: "[8,7]" -> "[7,8]" (refs in ascending order) p.3,l.16 [TYPO]: Ref to Chapter 3 is wrong p.4,l.13 [SUGG]: Drop "With this version of MPI..." p.5,l.26 [TYPO]: Capitalize \textit{send} -> \textit{Send} p.6,l.1 [SUGG]: "remove" -> "complement" p.7,l.27 [ADD]: Reference to Appendix of Deprecated Functions (as discussed at Forum meeting) p.7,l.29 [TYPE]: repeats line 26, drop p.6,l.35ff [COMM]: The things of JOD that are now in the standard should be removed from this discussion.

Chapter 2: p.9,l.16 [SUGG]: Eliminate MPI-1/MPI-2 distinctions, e.g. "MPI Terms and Conventions Chapter" p.12,l.29 [SUGG]: Make a reference to definition of typemap (Section 3.12, p.75) p.14,l.36 [SUGG]: shouldn't "inquery function" be "query function"? p.16,l.24 [TYPO]: "principle" -> "principal" p.22,l.23 [TYPO]: "a MIMD style" -> "an MIMD style" (?) p.25,l.9 [QUESTION]: Do we really want to stand by this, that the examples have "not been carefully checked or verified"???

Chapter 3: [SUGG]: Change the examples (p.27; 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 etc.) such that they'll work for any number of processes, eg. make explicit what both ranks do

if (myrank == 0) { ... } else if (myrank == 1) { ... }

At least, examples should be consistent, some of the Fortran examples (as in 3.6) mention what rank .EQ. 1 does [SUGG]: for count, rank, tag arguments, change "(integer)" to "(nonnegative integer)" in all functions descriptions. At least, it should be consistent, which ii now not the case

p.27,l.21 [SUGG]: shouldn't this be "Example 3.1"? p.28,l.5 [SUGG]: "(myrank ==1)" reads badly, since it is not in the example; make an explicit if-clause (see above) p.28,l.29 [COMM]: here count is "(nonnegative integer)", but this disappears later, eg. in RECV, p.32,l.4 p.28,l.33,34 [SUGG]: change "(integer)" to "(nonnegative integer)" for dest and tag arguments (and throughout) p.29, Tables should contain all (MPI-1 and MPI-2) datatypes. p.30 [SLIP]: MPI_LONG_LONG has disappeared p.46,l.28 [QUESTION]: Does the Forum realy want to stand to this (recommendation, almost, of unsafe programming style)?? p.53,l.29 [SLIP]: drop this line "Section on Argument and register optimization" (similar is elsewhere, seems an edition slip, eg. p.72,l.32) p.54,l.15: take line up after "(" p.58,l.29-30: state explicitly that count is a "(nonnegative integer)". Same in all array_of_request functions p.59,l.35 [QUESTION]: or is it intended that WAITSOME/TESTSOME takes an array of atleast one request? p.71,l.7-8: change font of MPI_ANY_SOURCE to sf p.76,l.39 [SUGG]: "New Datatype ..." -> "Additional Datatype..." p.87,l.1,2,11 [TYPO]: n-dimensional -> $n$-dimensional (or other consistent font) p.94,l.22: replace deprecated MPI_Address by MPI_Get_address p.94,l.45 [TYPO]: refs are wrong p.97,l.2 [SUGG]: for "gather" put forward reference to Chapter 4 p.99,l.32 [TYPO]: "a argument" -> "an argument" p.103,l.32 [SUGG]: "ELSE" -> "ELSE IF (rank.EQ.1)" p.107,l29 [SUGG]: This example (3.36) could be broken up into smaller examples p.117,l.22 [SUGG]: change "else /* myrank == 1 */" into the explicit "else if (myrank == 1)" (general suggestion) p.117,l.41 [TYPO]: concatenate all -> concatenates all

Chapter 4: This chapter does not work in the merged form. p.121,l.48 [TYPO]: "Such processes are called the root" -> "Such a process is called the root" p.125,l.3 [TYPO]: MPI_Exscan is missing p.125,l.35 [TYPO]: drop this line on MPI_Alltoallw p.125,l.47 [SUGG]: "additions" is not the right word here (whole section is VERY problematic, as is this whole chapter) p.127,l.2 [SUGG]: "being identical" must be rephrased p.128,l.19 [SUGG]: all count arguments explicitly "(nonnegative integer)" p.132,l.82 [TYPO]: left justify closing "}" p.135,l.40 [TYPO]: "that that" -> "that" p.144,l.43 [TYPO]: "The jth block of data sent" -> "The block of data sent" p.151,l.27 [SUGG]: "and a scan (parallel prefix) operation." -> "and two scan (parallel prefix) operations." p.152,l.38 [TYPO]: join lines up p.153,l.5-6 [TYPO]: remove '' p.153,l.20 [SUGG]: include MPI_EXSCAN p.153,l.33-34 [SUGG]: "xor" -> "exclusive or" p.153,l.43ff [TYPO]: format table properly p.159,l.160 [SUGG]: add MPI_EXSCAN to list p.160,l.34 [TYPO]: "len" in sf font p.161,l.20ff [TYPO]: RECV, SEND -> MPI_Recv, MPI_Send + add MPI_Comm_size/rank calls to example to set groupsize and rank variables p.161,l.35 [TYPO]: group-size -> groupsize p.163,l.15 [TYPO]: "MPI includes variants..." -> "MPI includes a variant of the reduce operation" p.163,l.45ff [TYPO]: description of MPI_IN_PLACE has been corrected? p.164,l.31 [TYPO]: "MPI includes variants..." -> "MPI includes a variant of the reduce operation..." p.166,l.14ff [SUGG]: drop this rationale, since MPI_EXSCAN has now been included p.166,l.28 [TYPO]: drop p.170,l.22 [COMMENT]: In my opinion, this example is NOT correct (the second scenario may hang, process 1 can enter the Bcast which cannot complete before process 2 enters Bcast, which it cannot before the Send has completed - as in example 4.25)

Chapter 5: This chapter does not work in the merged form. [SUGG]: since the chapter deals also with caching on windows and other objects, change title to "Groups, contexts, and caching" p.175,l.18 [SUGG]: "dealt with so far"... is no longer true p.175,l.38-39 [SUGG]: obviously drop lines on no collectives on intercomms p.177,l.10 [SUGG]: drop parenthetical remark p.177,l.19 [SUGG]: drop ref to next chapter p.184,l.22-23 [QUESTION]: Is this advice to implementers needed anymore? p.184,l.46-47 [SUGG]: drop parenthetical remark p.186,l.20-22 [SUGG]: drop, obviously p.190,l.26 [QUESTION]: parenthetical remarks seems strange, drop? p.193,l.7 [TYPO]: "the debugging" -> "a debugging" p.199,l.28 [SUGG]: "the above examples is really three examples" - why not split? The example is too long p.200,l.28 [TYPO]: drop "Advice to users:" (twice) p.200,l.48 [TYPO]: Obviously drop p.201,l.19 [SUGG]: "A group is represented" -> "A group can be represented" p.201,l.38 [QUESTION]: what does "the same algorithm is appropriate..." mean? p.205, Exsample 1 [SUGG]: very long... p.208,l.22 [TYPO]: remove blank space, line tags up. Example is excessively long! p.212,l.44 [SUGG]: "you" does not read well, "one can" or sth. p.212,l.45 [SUGG]: the other extreme would be not to allow it at all... p.213,l.8 [TYPO]: "attributes are attached to communicators" is now wrong p.213,l.23 [TYPO]: represents -> requires p.217,l.40 [TYPO]: formatting, move lines up p.219,l.46 [TYPO]: "the the" -> "then the"

Chapter 6: p.231,l.47 [SUGG]: remove "tremendous" p.232,l.17 [SUGG]: remove PARMACS rationale, seems obsolete nowadays p.233,l.19 [SUGG]: remove EXPRESS/PARMACS rationale

Chapter 7: p.249,l.5 [SUGG]: "for C" -> "for C and C++" p.261-262 [SUGG]: move MPI-2 errir classes into running discussion/tables

Chapter 8: [SUGG] Rename chapter to "Controlling the functionality: The info object" or something like this. Any better/good suggestions? p.271,l.14 [SUGG]: Remove this line p.274,l.36 [TYPO]: change font in (key,value) to sf. Also elsewhere p.275,l.5 [TYPO]: font p.276,l.37 [TYPO]: font should be $n$th

Chapter 9: p.279,l.21ff [TYPO]: Remove/reformulate this historical/anecdotical remark

Chapter 10: p.312,l.15 [COMM]: Note that here it is said that counts are "(nonnegative integers)"; same should be done also for p2p and collectives, also for consistency reasons. p.313,l.29,l.32 [QUESTION]: is it "high quality" or "high-quality"? p.315,l.11 [TYPO]: MPI_TYPE_EXTENT -> MPI_TYPE_GET_EXTENT (also in next examples) p.330,l.10 [QUESTION]: what is the state of Fortran compilers at this time of writing?

Chapter 11:

Chapter 12: p.432,l.27 [SUGG]: Make reference to subarray constructor definition, 3.12.4, p.86

Chapter 13: p.435,l.24 [SUGG]: modify, only "MPI" p.436,l.13 [SUGG]: "as of writing" - this state of affairs has changed

Chapter 14: p.482,l.27 [SUGG]: Section 14.6 can be dropped?

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