Subject: C427 JGSI Review Resent-Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 23:19:04 -0400 Resent-From: Geoffrey Fox Resent-To: p_gcf@npac.syr.edu Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:50:04 -0600 From: "David S. Dixon" Organization: Least Squares Software, LLC To: Geoffrey Fox 1. Overall ******** This is an interesting and well written article on an important topic. The details of serialization as an implementation of an MPI Object type are covered in detail. The assertion that object serialization is essential to Java message passing is well expressed and well supported. Performance issues are discussed and illustrated, though the conclusions are not well supported in terms of numbers and statistics. 2. Comments for Author(s) ********************* Use of acronyms. A large number of acronyms were used without introduction, ranging from fairly common, such as API and JDK, to ones more esoteric, like MPI and RMI, and ones I don't know, like JPVM and VIA. JPVM, in particular, was referenced to a paper on "jmpi", which served to increase the alphabet soup but not clarify it. Good science and good statistics: I assume the authors did some regressions on the formulae (1) through (3) to get to Table 1. Missing are statements regarding sample size, residuals, general statistics and general error analysis (for example, there appear to be consistent systematic errors in the plots). The Discussion section is disjoint and difficult to follow. The first paragraph is good, the second paragraph seems to unravel entirely, the third paragraph is fine, the next two paragraphs don't seem to connect. The second to the last paragraph is a bit scattered, and the sentence early on, "We consider this case unproven" seems disconnected. The rest of the paragraph is fine, and the conclusion pointing to one-dimension underlying data supports my own work, but needs a stronger argument. The final paragraph/sentence is to the point and closes the article excellently. * Extra preposition - Last sentence, para 2, page 4, should be "(But effects similar to these..." * Missing evidence - First sentence, para 3, page 5, beginning "Evidently..." implies there is evidence, but it is not evident. * Missing word - Last sentence, para 3, page 5, should be "Benchmark results presented in the next section suggest that..." * Confused sentence - Last sentence at the bottom of page 5, beginning "To support MPI derived datatypes..." This sentence is long, confusing, and contains one or more extraneous "to". * Use of the word "state" - Last sentence, para 1, and fourth sentence, para 2, page 6, the word "state" is used in an obscure way. * Repeated word - Second sentence, footnote 2, page 6, repeated "to" in the sentence beginning "There are various proposals..." * Typo - First sentence, para 3, page 8, "communication" is misspelled. * Missing verb - Second to last sentence, para 1, page 10, should be "...previous section can be drastically reduced or eliminated." * Incorrect hyphenation - First sentence, para 2, page 11, "straightforward" is incorrectly hyphenated. * Incorrect figure - First sentence, para 3, page 11, should reference Figure 6. * Repeated word - Second sentence, footnote 5, page 13, there's an extra "of" 3. Comments for Editor(s) ******************** None.