[petsc-users] VecView to hdf5 broken for large (complex) vectors

[Smith, Barry F.]

> On Apr 17, 2019, at 6:49 AM, Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 2:40 AM Smith, Barry F. via petsc-users <petsc-users at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Apr 17, 2019, at 1:35 AM, Balay, Satish <balay at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, 17 Apr 2019, Smith, Barry F. via petsc-users wrote:
> > 
> >>  This is fine for "hacking" on PETSc but worthless for any other package. Here is my concern, when someone 
> >> realizes there is a problem with a package they are using through a package manager they think, crud I have to
> >> 
> >> 1) find the git repository for this package
> >> 2) git clone the package 
> >> 3) figure out how to build the package from source, is it ./configure, cmake, what are the needed arguments,... 
> >> 4) wait for the entire thing to build 
> >> 
> >> then I can go in and investigate the problem and provide and test the fix via a pull request. Heck I'm not going to bother.
> >> 
> >> Thus a lot of potential contributions of small fixes that everyone in the community would benefit from are lost. This is why, for 
> >> me, an ideal HPC package manager provides a trivial process for providing fixes/improvements to other packages.
> >> 
> >> For example Sajid could have easily figured out the VecView_MPI_HDF5() bug and provided a fix but just the hassle of 
> >> logistics (not ability to solve the problem) prevented him from providing the bug fix to everyone rapidly. 
> > 
> 
>    I never said that any current practices are better than using spack! It is just that perhaps 
> with a few tweaks spack could provide a way to fundamentally improve our current practices (which are, as you acknowledge cumbersome).
> 
> This sounds like a hopeless pipedream. But maybe.

   Most of the infrastructure is there already. 

> 
>    Matt
>  
>    Barry
> 
> > Even without spack and multiple packages - this is not a easy thing to
> > do. For ex: most of our users install petsc from tarball.
> > 
> > And if they find a bug - they have to go through similar complicated
> > process [create a bitbucket account, get a fork - learn the petsc PR
> > process - make a PR etc].
> > 
> > With spack - I stick to the usual process - and don't get bogged down
> > by 'spack' support for this process.
> > 
> > If I see a breakage - I do 'spack build-env package [this has its own
> > issues] - attempt a fix - get it first working with a spack build.
> > 
> > [Alternative is to just edit the package file to get my fix - if its a patch I can find]
> > 
> > 
> > Once I have it working [the major issue is taken care off]. Then I
> > have a diff/patch and then worry about how to submit this diff/patch
> > to upstream.
> > 
> > Sure its a multi step model - and has many trip points. But is not
> > that our current petsc only model doesn't have any.
> > 
> > Satish
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.
> -- Norbert Wiener
> 
> https://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~knepley/