Workshop on Language-level Approaches for Retargetable
High-Performance Computational Science Applications

Call for Participation

Dates:   October 5-6, 2010
Venue:   Rice University, Houston, TX
Contact: language-tools-2010@cca-forum.org

Organizing committee:
---------------------

   Robert Armstrong (Sandia National Labs)
   Barbara Chapman (U. Houston)
   John Feo (Pacific Northwest National Lab)
   John Mellor-Crummey (Rice U.)
   Boyana Norris (Argonne National Lab)
   Matthew Sottile (Galois, Inc.)
   Greg Watson (IBM Watson Research Center)

Summary:
--------

The advent of high-performance architectures, while potentially more
powerful, put an increasing work load on the computational scientist
to adapt their code to new programming models and environments.
Moreover, the rate at which new architectures arise is increasing,
making the problem of adapting their code not just a one time
inconvenience but a continual burden.  As a rule, the programmer's own
science knowledge base and much of the code is largely unaffected by
these upheavals: it is mainly the underlying numerical algorithms and
data structures that require the reworking.  Nonetheless these aspects
of the code may be pervasive and non-modular: woven densely into every
part of the code.  Currently programmers find themselves in an
environment for which mature tools do not exist and are forced to do
all of the work themselves by hand. For the scientist-developer who's
primary concern is science, this is intimidating given the increasing
knowledge required to take advantage of these exotic platforms that
are changing an increasing pace.  A number of researchers have
suggested that compiler-like, possibly domain-specific language tools
have a role to play in automating code transformations to more easily
adapt the scientist-developer's code to new architectures.

This workshop is being organized to bring together a diverse set of
participants to identify a path forward to address this problem through
use of language tools.  The committee has identified three critical
questions that should be addressed:

1. Because HPC platforms, platform architectures and programming
models are changing at an ever more rapid pace, scientists need a way
to keep the science, as expressed in code, separate and independent
of these low level implementation details.  What is the transition
path to new programming models and/or languages, and what levels of
automation are possible and should be pursued? What types and how
much user input will be required (e.g., semantical annotations or
partial implementations such as templates)?

2. What code transformation tools are needed to support wider
adoption of code transformation techniques by the scientist code
developer?  What compiler and language-level tools are needed by the
*tool* developer to achieve this end?

3. If a majority of the scientist developer's code does not depend on  
the
platform or programming model, is there a way of expressing the
scientist's intent as separate from the target environment?


Participation:
-------------------

This workshop will include a small number of invited speakers who will
be asked to address these questions.  Participation in the workshop
will be open to the wider computing community.  People wishing to
participate must SUBMIT A HALF-PAGE SUMMARY of their position on this
topic, SPECIFICALLY ADDRESSING THE 3 QUESTIONS ABOVE.  We ask that
participants come prepared to think ambitiously about the larger
problem rather than to focus on any single existing tool or solution.

The structure of the workshop will be a full day of discussion with a
small number of presentations by invited speakers.  This will be
followed by a second half day (ending at noon) dedicated to
summarizing the outcome of the meeting with the goal of creating a
position paper representing the thoughts of the participants.  The
whitepaper is primarily to inform DOE Office of Advanced Scientific
Computing Research of research needs in the language tools field but
may be useful for other agencies.

[A CS representative from DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing
Research will also give a perspective of their future needs in this
area.]

Those interested in participating should e-mail
language-tools-2010@cca-forum.org.

Participation Requirements:

* Half page (plain text) answering the 3 topical questions above.
* $175 registration fee.

Please send the half page position statement to
language-tools-2010@cca-forum.org.  The registration fee is payable at
the meeting.

Logistics:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Meeting Dates: 8:00a-5:00p 5 October and 8:00a-12:00p 6 October 2010

Location: Kyle Morrow Room in the Rice University Main Library,
Houston, TX

Accommodations: Hilton Houston Plaza/Medical Center next to the Rice
University Medical Center, URL:
http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/HOUMCHF-Hilton-Houston-Plaza-Medical-Center-Texas/index.do

Ask for the "LCPC" group identifier when making reservations.

--
Boyana Norris, Computer Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
norris@mcs.anl.gov, +1.630.252.7908, http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~norris/