time
With the past week's release of CUDA-2.0-beta2, I reflected on all the work that got us this far. The CUDA Test Automation group (of which I'm a member) at NVIDIA spent the past 6 months working to get this release tested as strenuously and widely as possible. This isn't to say that there was only 6 months of testing. What I'm saying is that there was 6 months of *hardware* testing. As in, the GT200 was getting tested for 6 months. Prior to that we were testing heavily for many months by emulating the GPU in software. Throughout the hardware & software based testing was both broad & deep. Every OS received the same level of testing, which has required a non-trivial number of test systems running tests 24 hours a day, every day of the week. Six months feels like a long time to be preparing for a product release, however, I'm proud of what has been accomplished thus far.
Earlier this month, my alma mater held my graduating class's 10th reunion. Its both surreal and weird to think that its been a decade since I graduated. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the reunion in person, and in fact, I haven't been back since the day I graduated. I do kind of miss it at times. I was certainly naive and wide eyed back then. Now, I'm jaded, often bitter, and at the moment feeling somewhat preachy and nostolgic. Its interesting how the passage of time changes things.