Pragmatic Computational Science August 1998
So here is a recipe for developing HPCC (parallel) applications as of August 1998
Use MPI for data parallel programs as alternatives are HPF, HPC++ or parallelizing compilers today
- Neither HPF or HPC++ has clear long term future for implementations -- ideas are sound
- MPI will run on PC clusters as well as customized parallel machines -- parallelizing compilers will not work on distributed memory machines
Today Fortran and C are good production languages
Today Java can be used for client side applets and in systems middleware but too slow for production scientific code
- This should change over next year with better Java compilers -- including “native” compilers which do not translate to Java Virtual Machine but go directly to native machine language
Use metacomputers for pleasingly parallel and metaproblems -- not for closely knit problems with tight synchronization between parts
Use where possible web and distributed object technology for “coordination”
pleasingly parallel problems can use MPI or web/metacomputing technology