[SYSTEMDS-2930] Remove function pointer based matrix accessor

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: SystemDS 2.1
• Fix Version/s: SystemDS 2.1
• Component/s: NativeRuntime
• Labels: GPU codegen
• Epic Link: spoof-cuda
• Assignee: Mark Dokter
• Reporter: Mark Dokter
• Created: 14/Apr/21 21:11
• Updated: 11/Jun/21 08:23
• Resolved: 11/Jun/21 08:23

Description

As it turns out, function pointers in CUDA code are a bad idea. They are used in the MatrixAccessor class of our  SPOOF-CUDA operators to access dense or sparse side inputs at runtime. The idea was to set the access method once in the beginning of a kernel to avoid a condition on every access but tests have shown that an "if dense do A else do B" works just fine. Resorting to this atm and leave a more elaborate yet quick solution as a ToDo.