Environments for Prototyping Parallel Algorithms

摘要

The current ferment in parallel computer architecture has exacerbated the already large problems in developing and testing parallel algorithms. Although only experimentation will identify effective designs, the variety of computing paradigms has precluded development of the (necessary) general environment for parallel programming. We propose an environment design system where design specification is divorced from implementation. Because the design system, Polylith, provides the communication structure of a parallel computation, the computation's individual tasks can be written in one of several relatively portable sequential languages. The resulting parallel program is architecture independent; only Polylith's underlying communication support need be ported to execute code on a different parallel machine. This approach is illustrated using examples from both parallel simulation and partial differential equations. 18 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab. (ERA citation 11:025248)