[pcchen]

Microsoft published an open spec of C++ AMP (Accelerated Massive Parallelism), which is implemented in Visual Studio 11.

Spec here (PDF)

[Dade]

Originally Posted by pcchen

Microsoft published an open spec of C++ AMP (Accelerated Massive Parallelism), which is implemented in Visual Studio 11.

They really seems to promote an open standard:

Copyright License. Microsoft grants you a license under its copyrights in the specification to (a) make copies of this specification to develop your implementation of this specification, and (b) distribute portions of this specification in your implementation or your documentation of your implementation.

(even if the following part where the license talks about patents isn't totally clear to me).

Writing an implementation over OpenCL looks like a straightforward process.

[pcchen]

Originally Posted by Dade

(even if the following part where the license talks about patents isn't totally clear to me).

IANAL but it seems to me that they are saying is: we promise not to sue you for any patent infringement w.r.t. this spec if you don't sue us

It's really important for this kind of things to be open if it really wants to be successful.

[AlexV]

That's how I read it too, under the same restriction. Pretty sure a lawyer would find a way to twist that but

On a separate note, I like AMP quite a bit more than I like OpenCL, in spite of it being currently more limited. It remains to be seen if any partie other than Microsoft will pick up the compiler writing mantle though. Some g++amp.exe would be useful...

[Dade]

Originally Posted by AlexV

On a separate note, I like AMP quite a bit more than I like OpenCL, in spite of it being currently more limited.

AMP looks promising however it doesn't seem exactly a direct OpenCL competitor. It is a bit like comparing Java Vs. Assembler. Ok, may be there isn't such a huge difference but OpenCL exposes a lot of hardware details.

P.S. anyone remembers the old days when C++ compilers were just front-end for translating the code in C ? Having something similar from C++ AMP to OpenCL would be quite useful.

[AlexV]

Originally Posted by Dade

AMP looks promising however it doesn't seem exactly a direct OpenCL competitor. It is a bit like comparing Java Vs. Assembler. Ok, may be there isn't such a huge difference but OpenCL exposes a lot of hardware details.

P.S. anyone remembers the old days when C++ compilers were just front-end for translating the code in C ? Having something similar from C++ AMP to OpenCL would be quite useful.

That ties into the limited aspect. That being said, I'm not that keen on the way OpenCL ends up exposing things (oh look, we're really close to the metal really...only that we're not really that close once one looks at is), and to be honest I have no confidence in its evolutionary path being anything worthwhile.

The whole Khronos boardism means a neverending tug of war between IHVs (just look at how nicely OpenGL did as a comitee driven effort). Apple had the potential to make things right by being the ultimate shepard / vetoer, but they seem utterly incapable to do so. What AMP has going for itself is primarly the same thing that made DX succeed: whilst it is consultation driven, MS ends up calling what happens when and how. Once AMP actually ends up firmly matching the featureset exposed by DirectCompute, I'd be surprised if CL earns anything worthwhile on GPUs. For CPUs it's likely that you may end up getting better performance than whatever WARP gives you, however, to be honest, I'd rather use something like ISPC there, if one doesn't want to get to intrinsincs.

On the other hand, this is a question of taste on my part (IMHO most of the programming language / tool warfare falls into this category, ultimately work can be done with almost anything unless it's hugely bad) so I do apologize if I end up sounding like other programming tool nazis

[Davros]

Is that like the patent protection you can buy from microsoft

"Now you have the option to acquire Xandros Desktop offerings together with Microsoft patent assurance. This assurance enables you to use Xandros Desktop software with confidence. This program is available for $50. Learn more by reading Microsoft's covenant."

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal...t/xandros.aspx

[rpg.314]

Promise not to sue != License. If MS really wanted to push AMP as an open standard, then they would have given a license grant predicated on non-litigation.

[pcchen]

Originally Posted by rpg.314

Promise not to sue != License. If MS really wanted to push AMP as an open standard, then they would have given a license grant predicated on non-litigation.

Well, Microsoft already promised not to sue anyone for patent infringement over any compliant implementation of this spec. I think that's good enough if all you want is to make an AMP implementation. Providing free license is probably better but I understand that it's probably too much for Microsoft to do (after all, a free license means one may be allowed to use the patent freely for other projects if he has made an implementation of AMP, and that's certainly not what Microsoft meant to do.)

[Nick]

I don't see how there's a future for this. Every time the hardware becomes less limited there will be a new version, further fragmenting the software ecosystem. That will only stop when eventually we're be back where we started: C++.

[Dade]

Originally Posted by Nick

I don't see how there's a future for this. Every time the hardware becomes less limited there will be a new version, further fragmenting the software ecosystem. That will only stop when eventually we're be back where we started: C++.

In my opinion, C++/C should have native vector types (i.e float4, etc.) and other few new features that we have seen to pop up in OpenCL C/CUDA C/C++ AMP, etc.

It would be useful also for developing classic CPU software (i.e. SSE, AVX, etc.)

So, may be we will go back to square one but I hope with some new feature gained on the way.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Dade

In my opinion, C++/C should have native vector types (i.e float4, etc.)...

Why? Creating your own vector types is trivial.

...and other few new features that we have seen to pop up in OpenCL C/CUDA C/C++ AMP, etc.

Such as?

It would be useful also for developing classic CPU software (i.e. SSE, AVX, etc.)

Any auto-vectorizing compiler worth its salt already uses vector instructions. Visual Studio 11 will finally join the ranks too.

So, may be we will go back to square one but I hope with some new feature gained on the way.

Aside from adding the 'restrict' keyword to the C++ standard, and perhaps adding a 'vectorize' pragma, I can't think of much that would be useful in the long run.