Why read this book?
Who is the audience?
What is the value?
If you are thinking I'm trying to sell you a book, hang on for just a minute. What I would like to do here is to share a recent experience of an exceptional review of a technical book, or specifically, review of Rob Farber’s CUDA Application Design and Development by Chris Jang.
At the monthly HPC & GPU Supercomputing Group of Silicon Valley Meetup, book reviews are a regular occurrence, and are always placed at the end of the meeting. This tradition started a year ago when NVIDIA gave away two GPU Computing Gems books to the first two volunteers committed to review at least one Chapter in the book and share their learning with the group.
With participants often excitedly talking over pizza and asking question after question to the invited speakers, the meetings always seem to run out of time for book review talks at the end. Thanks to NVIDIA for regular contributions of GPU Computing Gems books, and a continuous flow of volunteer speakers, even with the end-of-meeting rush, reviews of about a dozen chapters have been shared at the meetups thus far.
To clarify, book reviews may sound academic, and it often is the more academic part of the meetings, the materials are mostly based on use cases and have practical examples. For that, most everyone sticks around and maximizes intake of learning at each meeting.
At the Monday April 23rd meetup, the book review was different: granted it was a different book, the review style, content and delivery all stood out. Chris started with the Why-Who-What questions, then shared his observations of three cultures in CUDA Application Design and Development: CUDA technology platform, stream processing on the GPU, and Machine learning, before diving into Acts and Themes, or his way of speaking about different parts of the book.
With this delivery of a comprehensive and fun review, those at the meetup learned that while the book is the whole world of CUDA in one place, it may not serve as a how-to guide, and while the book is helpful to those making technology choices, the various technology cultures may be confusing. The slides are here for those interested.
As this distinct book review talk closed the April meetup on a high note, Jike Chong, the meetup organizer, reminded everyone of the GTC Special meetup on May 15 that is co-located with the GPU Technology Conference. Instead of technical talks, this meetup will feature experience to help Start Your HPC and GPU Supercomputing Meetup Group, followed by What You Always Wanted to Know About GPUs, a Game Show with Raffles!
Since GPU enthusiasts from all over the United States (and even internationally) will be present for the GTC, this meetup will be a great opportunity for people to meet and learn! We also received a tip from a reliable source that there will be a well-known special surprise guest attending! You'll just have to sign up, show up and find out. Seats are filling up fast, so hurry!
