EasyPAB: An extensible IDE framework for parallel applications

Abstract

Modeling and programming parallel applications are becoming unavoidable for next generation of software architects and programmers, owing to the popularization of multi-core processors and Linux Clusters for high performance/availability computing. As an aid to design and development of various parallel applications running on different parallel computing infrastructure, an extensible IDE (Integrated Development Environment) framework named EasyPAB (Easy Parallel Application Builder) is introduced in this paper. It combines the principle and technology of parallel design patterns and architectural skeleton to simplify the design and development of parallel applications and supports both message-passing-based and shared-memory-based platforms, by providing a unified user interface for modeling visually while generating different types of code skeletons according to specific runtime environment automatically. The implementation of EasyPAB is based on plug-in architecture which is compatible with Eclipse, thus third parties are free to supplement or improve it. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.