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Octopiler to Ease Use of Cell Processor

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ps3-where-are-you dept.

Sean0michael writes "Ars Technica is running a piece about The Octopiler from IBM. The Octopiler is supposed to be compiler designed to handle the Cell processor (the one inside Sony's PS3). From the article: 'Cell's greatest strength is that there's a lot of hardware on that chip. And Cell's greatest weakness is that there's a lot of hardware on that chip. So Cell has immense performance potential, but if you want to make it programable by mere mortals then you need a compiler that can ingest code written in a high-level language and produce optimized binaries that fit not just a programming model or a microarchitecture, but an entire multiprocessor system.' The article also has several links to some technical information released by IBM."

10 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. 'Octopiler' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Wasn't that a James Bond film?

  2. So don't hire mere mortals by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hire "Real Programmers". You know, the ones that only code in Assembler, and if they can't do it in Assembler then it isn't worth doing.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:So don't hire mere mortals by stedo · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hire "Real Programmers". You know, the ones that only code in Assembler, and if they can't do it in Assembler then it isn't worth doing.
      Hmph. "Real Programmers" needing a bleedin' assembler to tell them what their bleedin' instructions mean? Why, back in my day we had to write our programs in machine language. We saved our work by means of a small bar magnet held a short distance above a hard disk platter. And we had to pay for our own bytes.

    2. Re:So don't hire mere mortals by SkyFire360 · · Score: 3, Funny

      So don't hire mere mortals, Hire "Real Programmers"

      Zeus was booked, Apollo was out of town, Hermes is still learning, Posideon just signed a 500-year agreement with Apple and Ares was killed off in God of War, so most of the good non-mortal programmers were out of the question. Hades claims to be a writer instead of a programmer, but most of the plot lines he comes up with ends up with everyone dead.

    3. Re:So don't hire mere mortals by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Oh, come on. Everyone knows that Hades isn't a programmer any more, not since he got promoted to Management and got that whole division to run down there.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    4. Re:So don't hire mere mortals by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Funny

      Help Wanted: Game Programmers

      Must have 5 years experience coding in Assembly for the IBM Cell processor

    5. Re:So don't hire mere mortals by daliman · · Score: 2, Funny

      I was stuck trying to decide whether you should be modded insightful or funny... So I decided to post instead. Sorry.

  3. Re:A new era in performance breakthroughs? by hunterx11 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Your post reminds me of the old adage, "Any sufficiently advanced fanboyism is indistinguishable from trolling."

    --
    English is easier said than done.
  4. Re:Sadly, not a lotta FPU hardware. by OldManAndTheC++ · · Score: 3, Funny
    Are we really that tiny a proportion of the world's population?

    You math geeks need to multiply. :)

    --
    Soylent Green is peoplicious!
  5. Re:CISC? by Tim+Browse · · Score: 2, Funny
    Is it just me or is it that we went from cisc to risc and now going back to risc again?

    Yeah, but the advantage of doing it this way is that the 2nd transition (from risc back to risc) is really quick!