[R-sig-hpc] doSNOW + foreach = embarrassingly frustrating computation

[A.J. Rossini]

SNOW shouldn't be complex -- not if people do the right thing and
appropriately add a backend (i.e. similar to what Revolution did for
NWS).  If you like to roll your own and target your own architecture,
fine.  And after someone else finds it inefficient, history will
repeat itself rather than learning.

SNOW provides portability, which MPI doesn't provide.  Portability and
reproducibility are important, even if people think that simplicity
and ease of use are wonderful things.

I'll point out the usual analogy,
http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html  for why SNOW won't win
and worse is better.

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Brian G. Peterson <brian at braverock.com> wrote:
> On 12/21/2010 11:38 AM, Marius Hofert wrote:
>>
>> Any ideas?
>
> I wonder  why you are adding the complexity of SNOW on top of MPI instead of
> using doMPI.  There are several good examples and vignette on calling doMPI
> via mpirun, and a discussion of what side effects you can expect and plan
> for.
>
> Regards,
>
>  - Brian
>
> --
> Brian G. Peterson
> http://braverock.com/brian/
> Ph: 773-459-4973
> IM: bgpbraverock
>
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-- 
best,
-tony

blindglobe at gmail.com
Muttenz, Switzerland.
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