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Don’t be like that. The shorthand here is that this is a novel, massively parallel architecture, much like those in supercomputers. If it had been adopted and s

Don’t be like that. The shorthand here is that this is a novel, massively parallel architecture, much like those in supercomputers. If it had been adopted and scaled up, it could have had interesting applications.

amelius 8y ago
But the parallelism isn't the hard part. The hard part is getting the communication structure right. Scaling up becomes difficult if the complexity of communication is e.g. quadratic in the number of nodes.
gnufx 8y ago
"Like that" as in trying to educate? Too bad. This described something isn't "massively parallel" and couldn't scale up. I'm happy with calling the big Sunway- and PEZY-based systems supercomputers and hope that Neo turns out well.
- ianai 8y ago
  You’re violating the rules of HN.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    More precisely: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ianai 8y ago
      I saw OP threw in technical points where the hobby machine is not like a production HPC box - after issuing a dismissal of the work entirely. HN does best when it gives a hobbyist a good faith appraisal of his/her work. A hobbyist is of course not going to have the resources to do HPC at home - usually.
      - mmt 8y ago
        > I saw OP threw in technical points where the hobby machine is not like a production HPC box - after issuing a dismissal of the work entirely. Which would make it a non-shallow dismissal, as it provided a number of specific discussion points, which are, in fact, being discussed. The guidelines don't, after all, discourage dismissal (even dismissal in entirety), only shallow dismissal. > HN does best when it gives a hobbyist a good faith appraisal of his/her work. This strikes me as a very subject assertion, all around. It's a matter of opinion on how HN does best, and it's a matter of opinion what constitutes a good faith appraisal, especially as it relates to a hobby. That said, I might agree for a "Show HN" post, but not for a repost of something 4 years old, with the arguably clickbaity (and patently, unarguably controversial) unqualified term "supercomputers" in the title. > A hobbyist is of course not going to have the resources to do HPC at home - usually. If not, I'm left to wonder, what's the point? Where is the performance "high" or the computing "super"? I could somewhat wrap my brain around a hobbyist building a very small (in node count) HPC cluster as a testbed. I could also understand if the goal were something like cost-performance efficiency improvement (for purchase and/or operating cost). Is that what's going on here? I didn't get that from the article, and only one comment claimed the architecture is "novel" without specifying in what way. I didn't even see anything to suggest scalability/modularity that's easier than "real" HPC, but that could be because I missed it among the emphasis on handmade construction.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  "Like that" trying to tear down a fun little hobby project.
supercomputery 8y ago
if scaling up were so easy, every country in the world would have made 1000s by now. there is a reason scaling up is hard, hard, hard problem. dont make it sound trivial how difficult building actual supercomputer architectures is. its easy for anyone who doesnt know the challenges to say - yeah, we will just scale it up using duct tape and straws
mmt 8y ago
> The shorthand here is that this is a novel, massively parallel architecture I'll bite.. I'm actually not at all experienced with supercomputers or HPC clusters, only 1990s proprietary MPP systems, what has been termed "grid computing" [1], and currently-popular systems like Hadoop. In what way is this novel? [1] e.g. distributed compilation, semiconductor simulation/test, or similarly embarassingly parallel workloads requiring little formal coordination beyond traditional batch scheduling resource allocation

amelius 8y ago

But the parallelism isn't the hard part. The hard part is getting the communication structure right. Scaling up becomes difficult if the complexity of communication is e.g. quadratic in the number of nodes.

gnufx 8y ago

"Like that" as in trying to educate? Too bad. This described something isn't "massively parallel" and couldn't scale up. I'm happy with calling the big Sunway- and PEZY-based systems supercomputers and hope that Neo turns out well.

ianai 8y ago
You’re violating the rules of HN.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  More precisely: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - ianai 8y ago
    I saw OP threw in technical points where the hobby machine is not like a production HPC box - after issuing a dismissal of the work entirely. HN does best when it gives a hobbyist a good faith appraisal of his/her work. A hobbyist is of course not going to have the resources to do HPC at home - usually.
    - mmt 8y ago
      > I saw OP threw in technical points where the hobby machine is not like a production HPC box - after issuing a dismissal of the work entirely. Which would make it a non-shallow dismissal, as it provided a number of specific discussion points, which are, in fact, being discussed. The guidelines don't, after all, discourage dismissal (even dismissal in entirety), only shallow dismissal. > HN does best when it gives a hobbyist a good faith appraisal of his/her work. This strikes me as a very subject assertion, all around. It's a matter of opinion on how HN does best, and it's a matter of opinion what constitutes a good faith appraisal, especially as it relates to a hobby. That said, I might agree for a "Show HN" post, but not for a repost of something 4 years old, with the arguably clickbaity (and patently, unarguably controversial) unqualified term "supercomputers" in the title. > A hobbyist is of course not going to have the resources to do HPC at home - usually. If not, I'm left to wonder, what's the point? Where is the performance "high" or the computing "super"? I could somewhat wrap my brain around a hobbyist building a very small (in node count) HPC cluster as a testbed. I could also understand if the goal were something like cost-performance efficiency improvement (for purchase and/or operating cost). Is that what's going on here? I didn't get that from the article, and only one comment claimed the architecture is "novel" without specifying in what way. I didn't even see anything to suggest scalability/modularity that's easier than "real" HPC, but that could be because I missed it among the emphasis on handmade construction.
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
"Like that" trying to tear down a fun little hobby project.

supercomputery 8y ago

if scaling up were so easy, every country in the world would have made 1000s by now. there is a reason scaling up is hard, hard, hard problem. dont make it sound trivial how difficult building actual supercomputer architectures is. its easy for anyone who doesnt know the challenges to say - yeah, we will just scale it up using duct tape and straws

mmt 8y ago

> The shorthand here is that this is a novel, massively parallel architecture I'll bite.. I'm actually not at all experienced with supercomputers or HPC clusters, only 1990s proprietary MPP systems, what has been termed "grid computing" [1], and currently-popular systems like Hadoop. In what way is this novel? [1] e.g. distributed compilation, semiconductor simulation/test, or similarly embarassingly parallel workloads requiring little formal coordination beyond traditional batch scheduling resource allocation