Monthly Archives: October 2013

Better OpenCL Documentation

I have launched openclreference.com, which is inspired by cppreference.com.  My objective is to create community-maintained OpenCL documentation that supplements the official standard.  I need help from the community to populate this site with content, so if you have some spare time please consider contributing.  I will also mention that the best way to learn OpenCL is to read the standard and contribute to the community documentation.

I personally will try to avoid writing documentation about the function specifications of OpenCL, and attempt to write more advanced pages on topics like OpenCL design patterns, and GPU architecture.  Let’s see how far we can get with this new site!

OpenCL 2.0: SPIR Feedback and Vision

OpenCL 2.0 Feedback Series:

  1. OpenCL Standardization Issues
  2. My OpenCL Vision and Philosophy
  3. OpenCL 1.3: My Proposal For a Final 1.x Release
  4. OpenCL 2.0: SPIR Feedback and Vision (this article)

The SPIR 1.2 provisional specification is critical to the success of OpenCL because it provides freedom to the software community to explore new device languages. Personally, I have my own ideas for new device languages and abstractions but I have been unable to explore them due to inflexibility within the OpenCL standard. Although SPIR 1.2 is close to what I want, it isn’t quite good enough. In this article I am going to outline what I want SPIR to be, so that I can stop complaining and start developing software.

 

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