A human-centric future for consumer computing — where mobile devices, virtual environments, and anthropomorphic communication interfaces allow humans to seamlessly move between cyber- and physical-spaces — is possible with the power of multicore parallel computing. A major impediment to this vision is that parallel programming today is remarkably difficult and the domain of a few experts. The Universal Parallel Computing Research Center (UPCRC) at Illinois has released a white paper that outlines its research agenda to bring parallel computing to mainstream consumer applications and make multicore parallel programming synonymous with programming. The paper discusses three primary research themes.
Focus on Disciplined Parallel Programming — Sequential languages have evolved to support well-structured programming, and provide safety and modularity. Mechanisms for parallel control, synchronization, and communication have not yet undergone a similar evolution. The UPCRC/Illinois takes the optimistic view that parallelism can be tamed for all to use by providing disciplined parallel programming models, supported by sophisticated development and execution environments. The white paper lays out an agenda to bring to parallel programming the analogs of the tenets underlying modern sequential programming.

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