Algorithmic Skeletons: Structured Management of Parallel Computation

This book introduces a new approach to the design and implementation of software systems which will help users of large scale parallel systems coordinate many concurrent activities toward a single goal. It assesses the strengths an weaknesses of this approach with existing alternatives.Cole's system proposes a selection of independent algorithmic skeletons, each of which describes the structure of a particular style of algorithm. The user must describe a solution to a problem as an instance of the appropriate skeleton. The implementation task is simplified by the fact that each skeleton may be considered independently, in contrast to the monolithic programming interfaces of existing systems at a similar level of abstraction.The book describes four skeletons based on the notions of fixed degree divide and conquer, task queues, iterative combination, and clustering. Each is introduced in terms of the abstraction it presents to the user. Implementation on a square grid of autonomous processor memory pairs is considered and examples of problems which could be solved in terms of the skeleton are presented.Murray I. Cole is a Lecturer in the Computing Science Department of the University of Glasgow. "Algorithmic Skeletons" is included in the series Research Monographs in Parallel and Distributed Computing, Copublished with Pitman Publishing,