An environment for the conversion of sequential programs into parallel forms

Abstract

A new program development environment that is based on visual programming techniques and avoids the problems associated with the use of existing methods, fostering parallel thinking, is presented. The environment, which reflects the intelligent apprentice paradigm (i.e. an assistant that helps the user but depends on the user for advice), provides an integrated set of tools that allows the user both to understand the dependencies within the program readily and to manipulate the dependence graph directly to maximize the amount of parallelism that can be exploited. To enter this environment, the user simply compiles the program under study. The tools analyze the dependences within the program and present the user with a diagrammatic, hierarchical representation of the program's dependence graph, reformatted to reflect available parallelism and highlighting constructs that inhibit the parallelization process (e.g. runtime-determined array bounds, I/O operations, computed GOTOs, etc.).<>