Basic HTML version of Foils prepared May 18 99

Foil 15 Java Grande Forum Floating Point Proposals

From Java Grande Overview IPPS/SPDP 1999 International Workshop on Java for Parallel and Distributed Computing San Juan Puerto Rico -- April 12 99. by Geoffrey C. Fox


Design Goals/Requirements:
  • Good Performance on most processors
  • High performance supported
  • exact reproducibility supported
  • access to IEEE floating point features
We propose three modes of floating point execution
strictfp: Reproducible results as in current default
new default: Exploit natural hardware (extended exponent in Intel and fused multiply add FMA)
associatefp: Allow conventional compiler optimizations
Sun willingly to consider some version of this starting with ability to use FMA
Generic Types, Operator Loading and lightweight classes are also serious possibilities for thoughtful additions to Java language
Working with internal Sun staff on drafting modest proposals (as of March 11 meeting in Palo Alto)



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