Experiences with Bilingual Parallel Programming

Abstract

Parallel programming requires tools that implify the expression of complex algorithms, providl portability across different classes of machine, an i allow reuse of existing sequential code. We have pr viously proposed bilingual programming as a basis 1 x such tools. In particular, we have proposed the 1 se of a high-level concurrent programming language 1 such as Strand1) to construct parallel programs from ( 1 )ossibly pre-existing) sequential components. We rep1 Irt here on an applications study intended to evaluatcl the effectiveness of this approach. We describe expl !riences developing both new codes and parallel versioi s of existing codes in computational biology, weathei modeling, and automated reasoning. We find that tl e bilingual approach encourages the development of parallel programs that perform well, are portable, and (ire easy to maintain.