Proposal: Add "fma" to the RealFloat class

Carter Schonwald carter.schonwald at gmail.com
Tue May 5 13:52:12 UTC 2015


Hey Takenobu,
Yes both are super useful! I've certainly used the Intel architecture
manual a few times and I wrote/maintain (in my biased opinion ) one of the
nicer blas ffi bindings on hackage.

It's worth mentioning that for haskellers who are interested in either
mathematical computation or performance engineering, on freenode the
#numerical-haskell channel is pretty good. Though again I'm a bit biased
about the nice community there

On Tuesday, May 5, 2015, Takenobu Tani <takenobu.hs at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Is this useful?
>
> BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms)
> http://www.netlib.org/blas/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Linear_Algebra_Subprograms
>
> Regards,
> Takenobu
>
>
>
> 2015-05-05 22:06 GMT+09:00 Takenobu Tani <takenobu.hs at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','takenobu.hs at gmail.com');>>:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Related informatioln.
>>
>> Intel FMA's information(hardware dependent) is here:
>>
>>   Chapter 11
>>
>>   Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Optimization Reference Manual
>>
>> http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/manuals/64-ia-32-architectures-optimization-manual.pdf
>>
>>
>> Of course, it is information that depends on the particular processor.
>> And abstraction level is too low.
>>
>> PS
>> I like Haskell's abstruct naming convention more than "fma":-)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Takenobu
>>
>>
>>
>> 2015-05-05 11:54 GMT+09:00 Carter Schonwald <carter.schonwald at gmail.com
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','carter.schonwald at gmail.com');>>:
>>
>>> pardon the wall of text everyone, but I really want some FMA tooling :)
>>>
>>> I am going to spend some time later this week and next adding FMA
>>> primops to GHC and playing around with different ways to add it to Num
>>> (which seems pretty straightforward, though I think we'd all agree it
>>> shouldn't be exported by Prelude). And then depending on how Yitzchak's
>>> reproposal  of that exactly goes (or some iteration thereof) we can get
>>> something useful/usable into 7.12
>>>
>>> i have codes (ie *dotproducts*!!!!!) where a faster direct FMA for *exact
>>> numbers*, and a higher precision FMA for *approximate numbers *(*ie
>>> floating point*),  and where I cant sanely use FMA if it lives anywhere
>>> but Num unless I rub typeable everywhere and do runtime type checks for
>>> applicable floating point types, which kinda destroys parametrically in
>>> engineering nice things.
>>>
>>> @levent: ghc doesn't do any optimization for floating point arithmetic
>>> (aside from 1-2 very simple things that are possibly questionable), and
>>> until ghc has support for precisly emulating high precision floating point
>>> computation in a portable way, probably wont have any interesting floating
>>> point computation.  Mandating that fma a b c === a*b+c for inexact number
>>> datatypes doesn't quite make sense to me. Relatedly, its a GOOD thing ghc
>>> is conservative about optimizing floating point, because it makes doing
>>> correct stability analyses tractable!  I look forward to the day that GHC
>>> gets a bit more sophisticated about optimizing floating point computation,
>>> but that day is still a ways off.
>>>
>>> relatedly: FMA for float and double are not generally going to be faster
>>> than the individual primitive operations, merely more accurate when used
>>> carefully.
>>>
>>> point being*, i'm +1 on adding some manner of FMA operations to Num*
>>> (only sane place to put it where i can actually use it for a general use
>>> library) and i dont really care if we name it fusedMultiplyAdd,
>>> multiplyAndAdd accursedFusionOfSemiRingOperations, or fma. i'd favor
>>> "fusedMultiplyAdd" if we want a descriptive name that will be familiar to
>>> experts yet easy to google for the curious.
>>>
>>> to repeat: i'm going to do some leg work so that the double and float
>>> prims are portably exposed by ghc-prims (i've spoken with several ghc devs
>>> about that, and they agree to its value, and thats a decision outside of
>>> scope of the libraries purview), and I do hope we can to a consensus about
>>> putting it in Num so that expert library authors can upgrade the guarantees
>>> that they can provide end users without imposing any breaking changes to
>>> end users.
>>>
>>> A number of folks have brought up "but Num is broken" as a counter
>>> argument to adding FMA support to Num. I emphatically agree  num is borken
>>> :), BUT! I do also believe that fixing up Num prelude has the burden of
>>> providing a whole cloth design for an alternative design that we can get
>>> broad consensus/adoption with.  That will happen by dint of actually
>>> experimentation and usage.
>>>
>>> Point being, adding FMA doesn't further entrench current Num any more
>>> than it already is, it just provides expert library authors with a
>>> transparent way of improving the experience of their users with a free
>>> upgrade in answer accuracy if used carefully. Additionally, when Num's
>>> "semiring ish equational laws" are  framed with respect to approximate
>>> forwards/backwards stability, there is a perfectly reasonable law for FMA.
>>> I am happy to spend some time trying to write that up more precisely IFF
>>> that will tilt those in opposition to being in favor.
>>>
>>> I dont need FMA to be exposed by *prelude/base*, merely by *GHC.Num* as
>>> a method therein for Num. If that constitutes a different and *more
>>> palatable proposal*  than what people have articulated so far (by
>>> discouraging casual use by dint of hiding) then I am happy to kick off a
>>> new thread with that concrete design choice.
>>>
>>> If theres a counter argument thats a bit more substantive than "Num is
>>> for exact arithmetic" or "Num is wrong" that will sway me to the other
>>> side, i'm all ears, but i'm skeptical of that.
>>>
>>> I emphatically support those who are displeased with Num to prototype
>>> some alternative designs in userland, I do think it'd be great to figure
>>> out a new Num prelude we can migrate Haskell / GHC to over the next 2-5
>>> years, but again any such proposal really needs to be realized whole cloth
>>> before it makes its way to being a libraries list proposal.
>>>
>>>
>>> again, pardon the wall of text, i just really want to have nice things
>>> :)
>>> -Carter
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Levent Erkok <erkokl at gmail.com
>>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','erkokl at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think `mulAdd a b c` should be implemented as `a*b+c` even for
>>>> Double/Float. It should only be an "optmization" (as in modular
>>>> arithmetic), not a semantic changing operation. Thus justifying the
>>>> optimization.
>>>>
>>>> "fma" should be the "more-precise" version available for Float/Double.
>>>> I don't think it makes sense to have "fma" for other types. That's why I'm
>>>> advocating "mulAdd" to be part of "Num" for optimization purposes; and
>>>> "fma" reserved for true IEEE754 types and semantics.
>>>>
>>>> I understand that Edward doesn't like this as this requires a different
>>>> class; but really, that's the price to pay if we claim Haskell has proper
>>>> support for IEEE754 semantics. (Which I think it should.) The operation is
>>>> just different. It also should account for the rounding-modes properly.
>>>>
>>>> I think we can pull this off just fine; and Haskell can really lead the
>>>> pack here. The situation with floats is even worse in other languages. This
>>>> is our chance to make a proper implementation, and we have the right tools
>>>> to do so.
>>>>
>>>> -Levent.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 10:58 AM, Artyom <yom at artyom.me
>>>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','yom at artyom.me');>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  On 05/04/2015 08:49 PM, Levent Erkok wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Artyom: That's precisely the point. The true IEEE754 variants where
>>>>> precision does matter should be part of a different class. What Edward and
>>>>> Yitz want is an "optimized" multiply-add where the semantics is the same
>>>>> but one that goes faster.
>>>>>
>>>>> No, it looks to me that Edward wants to have a more precise operation
>>>>> in Num:
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd have to make a second copy of the function to even try to see the
>>>>> precision win.
>>>>>
>>>>> Unless I'm wrong, you can't have the following things simultaneously:
>>>>>
>>>>>    1. the compiler is free to substitute *a+b*c* with *mulAdd a b c*
>>>>>    2. *mulAdd a b c* is implemented as *fma* for Doubles (and is more
>>>>>    precise)
>>>>>    3. Num operations for Double (addition and multiplication) always
>>>>>    conform to IEEE754
>>>>>
>>>>>  The true IEEE754 variants where precision does matter should be part
>>>>> of a different class.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, does it mean that you're fine with not having point #3 because
>>>>> people who need it would be able to use a separate class for IEEE754 floats?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>>
>
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