DrupalGapps

Top 5 reasons Why you should use Sun Studio 12

1. Sun Studio 12 compilers and tools to capitalize on multicore hardware, multithreaded software .

These are no more single chip processors, the from dual core to multi core. The programming convention are evolving and focus is drifting towards parallel/multi-threaded programming, cloud computing and more. It brings 3 thoughts in my mind : 

• A. The race for ever-increasing processor speeds is all but over. Greater performance is now being achieved through parallelism--at both a hardware and software     level. Sun Microsystems’ UltraSPARC T2 (Niagara 2) processor, for example, offers 8 cores and 64 threads on a single chip.        
  
• B. In order to utilize such multicore hardware platforms, applications are increasingly being developed with multithreaded parallel programming in mind, using such technologies as OpenMP and MPI. Sun Studio 12 Update 12 support  the latest OpenMP 3.0 specification .
•  C.  Lastly, developers are increasingly mixing and matching technologies from a broad palette of open-source operating systems, Like Solaris, Linux, etc and technology offerings.

Sun Studio 12 Update 1 includes improvements in the compiler's ability to automatically parallelise codes - afterall the easiest way to develop parallel applications is if the compiler can do it for you. improvements to the support of parallelisation specifications like OpenMP and improvements in the tools and their ability to provide the developer meaningful feedback about parallel code, for example the ability of the Performance Analyzer to profile MPI code.

2. Profile your Application like never Before with DLight

System profiling tools allow you to explore your system, understand how it works and track down performance problems across many software layers. DLight is a new tool which unifies application profiling and system profiling using DTrace technology on Solaris platforms.

DLight runs on the Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris operating systems, though it also runs on Linux operating systems, but only the Clock Profiler and JAVA Ticker instruments are available in these environments.

Learn Dlight from Official Tutorial

3. Use NOT-JUST-COMPILERS included in Sun Studio 12

C, C++, and Fortran compilers, with optimizations for multicore architectures that are fine-tuned for each microarchitecture (SPARC, x86/x64). Sun Studio compilers generate improved binary application performance on Intel x86, AMD x86, UltraSPARC and SPARC64-based systems. With dozens of recent industry-based benchmarks, Sun Studio compilers take full advantage of the latest multicore architectures.

Take a look at Official Sun Studio 12 Benchmarks

C / C++ Compiler Features

    * Support for ISO/IEC 14882:1998 and 2003 C++ Standard
    * Compatibility mode for easy migration from ARM style code to ANSI C++ code
    * Binary compatibility maintained for both ARM and ANSI C++ code for easy upgrade to a newer compiler or OS
    * OpenMP C/C++ v2.5 API support
    * Automatic and manual Precompiled Header support
    * Thread-local storage for MT application development
    * Choice of Sun-default C++ standard library and STLport
    * Garbage collection library for heap management and easy detection of runtime leaks
    * Support for BOOST library
    * Highly optimized
    * Auto-parallelization for loops

4. Enhanced Debugging and Runtime Checking

When you start a debugging session, the IDE starts the dbx debugger, then runs the application inside the debugger. The IDE automatically opens the debugger window and prints debugger output to the Output window.

Runtime Checking Detects memory access errors, memory leaks, Collects data on memory use. It Works with all languages, and multithreaded code, Requires no recompiling, relinking, or makefile changes

Dbx Debugging Tutorial

More about dbx Debugger :

    * Supports C, C++, Fortran, and Java
    * Multisession, multithread aware
    * Recognizes stabs and DWARF
    * Recognizes gdb commands
    * Fully scriptable
    * Command-line and GUI interfaces
    * Seamlessly debugs apps composed of both Java and native code
    * Support for Solaris threads and LWPs
    * Support for OpenMP
    * Linux POSIX threads library

5. State-of-art Plugins, Tools , an emerging Community and more !

A. NetBeans Plugins for the Sun Studio IDE

•  Dynamic Tracing (DTrace) GUI Plugin

• Assembler Support
• Where Used
• C++ Experimental Call Graph

 B. Cool-Tools

Cool Tools can work together to support the stages of porting, building, tuning, and debugging an application. There are numerous Cool-tools. Check out the Official Cool-Tool website 

C. Emerging Community,Screencasts, Webinars, Tutorials, Complete Documenation, Blogs, Forums, Sun proffesional Support and much more makes Sun Studio 12 an obvious choice of any serious Developer and Companies.

Important Links : 

1. Sun Studio 12 Quick Start Guide

2. Sun Studio Mind Mapped . I will try to update as per new features in Sun Studio in forth coming versions.

 Download Sun Studio 12 , Update 1

Sun Studio 12 along with Update 1, Mind Mapped

[Just to let you all know, this post shares my experience with Sun Studio 12, and is an reponse of Sun Studio Blogging Contest. I hope you like it, please do comment leave comments if you like or not or any advice.]