[Beowulf] value of parallel programming experience (was: Checkpointing using flash)

[Vincent Diepeveen]

On Sep 25, 2012, at 5:44 PM, Hearns, John wrote:

>
> It is not so much about parallel programming experience but about
> scientific software development career path. Quite often parallel
> skills are needed anyway. A former colleague and a good friend of mine
> explains it quite nicely here:
>
> http://software.ac.uk/blog/2012-04-23-work-scientific-software- 
> engineers-recognised-academia
>
> Igor, that's a very good article.
>
> I must say though that in particle physics there is a job title of  
> Physicist Programmer.

You are correct, one of the government organisations here sometimes  
has an empty spot for that.
They have their own clusters and aren't connected to the 'grid' AFAIK  
with those, which makes them
move easier around.

job requirement : PHD or at least master degree and very good in  
algorithms
job payment: 1800-2200 euro a month (before tax).

Less than half what the average programmer makes building a website.

I would argue that good programming the new generation manycore  
hardware is pretty important.

Right now i'm finishing an EGTB generator (computer chess) that's  
going to do at a single box 8 core Xeon
in 6 months the same thing like earlier this year 8000+ cores from  
Lomonosov took many months.

Achieving something and achieving the same thing in a more effective  
algorithmic manner is 2 different fields of
expertise.

Over here the scientific institutes do not have a budget seemingly to  
pay good programmers, and honestely if they had,
odds are there they'd give it to their biggest friend rather than  
effectively use such budget what it's needed for.

What's coming at us is not making things easier. The programming  
component gets more important i'd argue than the hardware
component.  Provided of course you have *some* budget for hardware.





>
> "The lack of career security often makes talented software  
> developers move to industry"
>
> $ME looks up over the cubicle divider at a large expanse of  
> industrial grey desks...
> (not that I'm talented, I hasten to add)
>
>
>
>
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