Rootbeer GPU Compiler Lets Almost Any Java Code Run On the GPU 304
An anonymous reader writes "Today the source code to the Rootbeer GPU Compiler was released as open source on github. This work allows for a developer to use almost any Java code on the GPU. It is free, open source and highly tested. Rootbeer is the most full featured translator to convert Java Bytecode to CUDA. It allows arbitrary graphs of objects to be serialized to the GPU and the GPU kernel to be written in Java." Rootbeer is the work of Syracuse University instructor Phil Pratt-Szeliga.
Re:Any code? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are no bad students, only bad teachers.
Trust me, there's plenty of bad students. They're only in class to collect their "No Worker Left Behind" check. Thankfully that program has run its course.
Re:How about getting java code to run on java (Score:1, Insightful)
Pretty much. Now, instead of having to bundle your blessed version of java and libraries with the app, you have to bundle those, AND a graphics card that speaks CUDA and has a specific driver version.
That whole "write once, run anywhere" was never true, and not only because it's stretching the word "run". Now it gets even less true.
Re:How about getting java code to run on java (Score:5, Insightful)
2004 called, they want their blind hate for Java back.
Used intelligently by a skilled programmer, Java can deliver great results and provide exactly the sort of cross platform capabilities it was designed for. Used by idiots and/or kids who just earned that undergrad CS degree, it tends to provide less.
Re:Any code? (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking as someone who has had the experience of being both a good and a bad student, I will tell you it has very little to do with the teacher. It's all about student attitude. I failed several undergrad classes quite convincingly and it was pretty much my own fault, even though I would have liked to have blamed it on some of the horrible teachers I had. I excelled in grad school because I approached it with a completely different attitude and no teacher, no matter how bad, was going to get in my way and prevent me from doing well.
I control my attitude. While I admit that no one is impervious to external influences, how a student reacts to a bad teacher is largely up to them. If you allow a bad teacher to turn you into a bad student, that's entirely your own fault. It's not like they've tied you down, cracked open your skull and deliberately rewired things to turn you into that asshole who never shows up or does the work.
Re:Any code? (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to think that too, until I started teaching at a state college. The only effective way to teach them is triage. There're the ones who will get it no matter what, the ones who will never learn a thing no matter how well you teach, but there's not much to be done there, short of encouraging the former to explore and helping the latter make it to the pass line. The bulk of the resources need to go to the middle group, where your efforts can make the difference between getting it and not.
There's hope yet! (Score:5, Insightful)
released as open source on github [github.com]
Damn, Slashdot, I almost had a freaking heart attack when I moused over (you don't think I actually clicked do you? New here?) the link in the summary and it was to the actual github page rather than some crappy 10 page blog post based on something pulled off the reuters wire from last week.
I'm impressed!
Re:How about getting java code to run on java (Score:3, Insightful)
You must run some VERY different apps than I do. Every management app I've used seems to be tied to different versions of java everything for ui glitches though plain just not working.
Re:Super (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is any hack done? Because it can be.
Re:Any code? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you are quite wrong indeed.
There are bad students out there, we do not live in a perfect happy smiley little world where every human has limitless potential and can do *anything* if only they tried and had good teachers. That nonsense view comes out of what political correctness has done to modern western society.
There are students who truly are unwilling to learn, dont want to be there, and are only in class because they have to.
There are actually students out there who will never be able to pass certain exams, no matter how good the teachers are and no matter how much they try. Some things are just beyond some people.
The *real world* is not perfect, humans are not perfect.
If you think that is a cynical view, well then that is utterly irrelevant to my point. Facts are facts, no matter how much we dont or do like that fact.
Re:GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
No, *you* get to dictate the licence of your software. It is *you* who chooses to use a GPL library in your code.
The Author of the GPL code did not put a gun to your head and forced you to choose their code.
Re:Any code? (Score:5, Insightful)
...tool & dye....
"Thinking is hard work, which is why so few people do it." - Henry Ford
Tool and die. I can understand not knowing how to spell it, bit quoting Henry Ford and not realizing that die work and tooling are technical jobs is abhorrent.
Tech support is to computer science as die setters are to mechanical engineers.
Tool and die makers are the software developers of the hardware world.
Captcha is pompous. How relevant.
Legal Problems. (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the approach that Oracle is taking of trying to copyright and charge license fees just for using the Java API's (see Oracle vs Google) I cant see any sane person developing on a non-Oracle provided Java platform. If they can sue Google for Dalvik they can certainly sue whoever deploys Rootbeer if they feel like it.
pgmer6809
Re:Any code? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Here's A Real Programming Language, Boy (Score:4, Insightful)
Congratulations on inventing C++
Re:Legal Problems. (Score:2, Insightful)
But because US law works so well, it does mean you'll be ruined long before the trial is over.
Re:Legal Problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't really matter who the law would eventually side with, if it takes long enough to do so to bankrupt you.
Re:How about getting java code to run on java (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Any code? (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, if you can make the good students fail, then you're a really bad teacher
Re:x264 (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, all modern GPUs have cache - both data & instruction caches. The cache structures are often quite unusual (code is split by instruction type, data cache is segmented etc.).
As for reorder - you might not have reordering within a thread, but multiple threads compete for resources (cache access primarily, but also computational units). In addition, while the thread spawn order is deterministic, predicting the rate accurately is subject to limits such as a shared register space allocator for all threads running on a sub-section of the GPU (but no sharing between sub-sections).
Shared data segment performance is quite complex and somewhat topologically dependent (ie. performance will depend on where exactly you end up executing on the chip - you need to know the logical topology to get best performance).
Your comment was more or less true in 2004, however ever since DX10 the complexity of GPUs has advanced considerably.
-- ex-GPU designer
Re:Any code? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, in university, in Practical CS 1 and 2 (aka "Java for beginners" and "Java for slightly more advanced beginners") we had a setup where students would form groups that do the written homework together and would enter an oral exam at the end where their individual proficiency would be evaluated. In both cases I came out with a good grade while the others of my groups failed. In both cases I was the only one of the group who actually cared about the subject. You can certainly be a bad student without external influences.