by Andrew Jones
Many in the supercomputing community want programming to be made easier, but the fundamental issue is far more complex than that, says Andrew Jones.
Most people agree that programming parallel computers is hard, especially if performance at scale is required — that is, if it involves a large number of processors. So it is hardly surprising that the question of how to make programming supercomputers easier is a popular topic at high-performance computing (HPC) conferences.
It is unarguable that parallel programming skills must become more common for two reasons. First, parallel hardware — whether multicore processors or graphical process units — is here for the foreseeable future. Secondly, wider use of HPC is critically important to scientific and industrial advancement.
