An object-oriented approach to structured parallel programming

Several kinds of parallel applications tend to employ regular patterns for communication between and internally to their components. Once the most commonly used patterns-such as pipelines, farms and trees-are identified (both in terms of their components and their communication), an environment can make them available as high-level abstractions to use in writing applications. This can lead to a structured style of parallel programming. The paper shows how this structured approach can be accommodated within an abject-oriented environment: on the one hand, a class library provides the patterns; on the other hand, programmers can define new patterns by exploiting inheritance. Several examples illustrate the approach and show that it can improve the usability of a parallel programming environment without sacrificing efficiency

Experiences toward an Object-oriented Approach to Structured Parallel Programming

In parallel programming, communication patterns are rarely arbitrary and unstructured. Instead, parallel applications tend to employ predetermined patterns of communication between their components. If the most commonly used patterns - such as pipelines, farms and trees - are identified (both in terms of their components and their communication), an environment can make them available as high-level abstractions for use in writing applications. This can yield a structured approach to parallel programming. The paper shows how this structured approach can be accommodated within an object-oriented language. A class library provides the most commonly used patterns and programmers can exploit inheritance to define new patterns. Several examples illustrate the approach and show that it can be efficiently implemented. Keywords Structured Parallelism, Object-Orientation, Communication Patterns This work has been partially supported by the `Progetto Finalizzato Sistemi Informatici e Calcolo P..