Fall 2021 SPO600 Weekly Schedule

This is the schedule and main index page for the SPO600 Software Portability and Optimization course for Fall 2021.

It's Alive!
This SPO600 weekly schedule will be updated as the course proceeds - dates and content are subject to change. The cells in the summary table will be linked to relevant resources and labs as the course progresses.

Schedule Summary Table

This is a summary/index table. Please follow the links in each cell for additional detail which will be added below as the course proceeds -- especially for the Deliverables column.

Week	Week of...	Class I Monday 8:00-9:50	Class II Thursday 8:00-9:50	Deliverables (Summary - click for details)
1	Sep 7	Labour Day Holiday	Introduction to the Course / Introduction to the Problem / How is code accepted into an open source project?	Set up for the course / Lab 1
2	Sep 13	Binary Representation of Data / Computer architecture basics / Introduction to Assembly Language	6502 Assembly Basics Lab (Lab 2)	Lab 2
3	Sep 20	Math, Assembly language contentions, and Examples	6502 Math Lab (Lab 2)	Lab 3
4	Sep 27	Addressing Modes	6502 Assembler (Cont'd)	September Blog Posts
5	Oct 4	System Routines / Strings / Building Code	6502 String Lab (Lab 4)	Lab 4
6	Oct 12	Thanksgiving Holiday	x86_64 and AArch64 Assembly	Lab 5
7	Oct 18	x86_64 and AArch64 Assembly / Compiler Optimizations / Project Selection	Compilation Lab (Lab 6)	Lab 6
Reading	Oct 25	Reading Week
8	Nov 1	Profiling	Profiling Lab (Lab 7)	October Blog Posts / Project Stage 1
9	Nov 8	Optimization through Algorithm Selection	Compilation Lab (Lab 6)	Lab 6
10	Nov 15	Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) and Vectorization	SIMD and Vectorization Lab (Lab 8)	Lab 8
11	Nov 22	Intrinsics and inline Assembler	Intrinsics Lab (Lab 9)	Project Stage 2
12	Nov 29	Project Discussion	Project Discussion	Lab 9 / November Blog Posts
13	Dec 6	Project Discussion	Lab 10	Lab 10
14	Dec 13	Future Directions in Architecture	Wrap-up Discussion	December Blog Posts / Project Stage 3

Week 1

Week 1 - Class II

Introduction to the Problems

Porting and Portability

• Most software is written in a high-level language which can be compiled into machine code for a specific computer architecture. In many cases, this code can be compiled for multiple architectures. However, there is a lot of existing code that contains some architecture-specific code fragments written in architecture-specific high-level code or in Assembly Language.
• Reasons that code is architecture-specific:
  • System assumptions that don't hold true on other platforms
    • Variable or word size
    • Endianness
  • Code that takes advantage of platform-specific features
• Reasons for writing code in Assembly Langauge include:
  • Performance
  • Atomic Operations
  • Direct access to hardware features, e.g., CPUID registers
• Most of the historical reasons for including assembler are no longer valid. Modern compilers can out-perform most hand-optimized assembly code, atomic operations can be handled by libraries or compiler intrinsics, and most hardware access should be performed through the operating system or appropriate libraries.
• A new architecture has appeared: AArch64, which is part of ARMv8. This is the first new computer architecture to appear in several years (at least, the first mainstream computer architecture).
• At this point, most key open source software (the software typically present in a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu or Fedora, for example) now runs on AArch64. However, it may not run as well as on older architectures (such as x86_64).

Benchmarking and Profiling

Benchmarking involves testing software performance under controlled conditions so that the performance can be compared to other software, the same software operating on other types of computers, or so that the impact of a change to the software can be gauged.

Profiling is the process of analyzing software performance on finer scale, determining resource usage per program part (typically per function/method). This can identify software bottlenecks and potential targets for optimization.

Optimization

Optimization is the process of evaluating different ways that software can be written or built and selecting the option that has the best performance tradeoffs.

Optimization may involve substituting software algorithms, altering the sequence of operations, using architecture-specific code, or altering the build process. It is important to ensure that the optimized software produces correct results and does not cause an unacceptable performance regression for other use-cases, system configurations, operating systems, or architectures.

The definition of "performance" varies according to the target system and the operating goals. For example, in some contexts, low memory or storage usage is important; in other cases, fast operation; and in other cases, low CPU utilization or long battery life may be the most important factor. It is often possible to trade off performance in one area for another; using a lookup table, for example, can reduce CPU utilization and improve battery life in some algorithms, in return for increased memory consumption.

Most advanced compilers perform some level of optimization, and the options selected for compilation can have a significant effect on the trade-offs made by the compiler, affecting memory usage, execution speed, executable size, power consumption, and debuggability.

Build Process

Building software is a complex task that many developers gloss over. The simple act of compiling a program invokes a process with five or more stages, including pre-proccessing, compiling, optimizing, assembling, and linking. However, a complex software system will have hundreds or even thousands of source files, as well as dozens or hundreds of build configuration options, auto configuration scripts (cmake, autotools), build scripts (such as Makefiles) to coordinate the process, test suites, and more.

The build process varies significantly between software packages. Most software distribution projects (including Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora) use a packaging system that further wraps the build process in a standardized script format, so that different software packages can be built using a consistent process.

In order to get consistent and comparable benchmark results, you need to ensure that the software is being built in a consistent way. Altering the build process is one way of optimizing software.

Note that the build time for a complex package can range up to hours or even days!

General Course Information

• Course resources are linked from the CDOT wiki, starting at https://wiki.cdot.senecacollege.ca/wiki/SPO600 (Quick find: This page will usually be Google's top result for a search on "SPO600").
• Coursework is submitted by blogging.
• Quizzes will be short (1 page) and will be held without announcement at the start of any synchronous class. There is no opportunity to re-take a missed quiz, but your lowest three quiz scores will not be counted, so do not worry if you miss one or two.
  • Students with test accommodations: an alternate monthly quiz can be made available via the Test Centre. See your professor for details.
• Course marks (see Weekly Schedule for dates):
  • 60% - Project Deliverables
  • 20% - Communication (Blog and Wiki writing)
  • 20% - Labs and Quizzes (10% labs - completed/not completed; 10% for quizzes - lowest 3 scores not counted)

Classes

• Monday: asynchronous (pre-recorded) resources will be made available - see this page for details each week
• Thursay: synchronous (live) classes will be held 8:00-9:50 am Eastern Time. See the announcement on Blackboard for details.

Course and Setup: Accounts, agreements, servers, and more

• SPO600 Communication Tools
• SPO600 Participants page
• Key generation for SSH to the SPO600 Servers.

How open source communities work

• Do the Code Review Lab (Lab 1) as homework.

Week 1 Deliverables

1. Course setup:
   1. Set up your SPO600 Communication Tools - in particular, set up a blog.
   2. Add yourself to the Current SPO600 Participants page (leave the projects columns blank).
   3. Generate a pair of keys for SSH and email the public key to your professor, so that he can set up your access to the class servers.
   4. Optional (strongly recommended): Set up a personal Linux system.
   5. Optional: Purchase an AArch64 development board (such as a 96Boards HiKey or Raspberry Pi 3 or 4. (If you use a Pi, install a 64-bit Linux operating system on it, not a 32-bit version).
2. Start work on Lab 1.