On-line service for teaching parallel programming

Abstract

With the wide adoption of the multicore and multiprocessor systems, parallel programming becomes very important element of the computer science education. However, the number of students exposed to the parallel programming is still limited and it is difficult to increase this number using traditional approach to teaching. The difficulties are caused, amongst others, by the parallel tools, libraries and programming models. The parallel programming using the message passing model is difficult, the shared memory model is easier to learn but writing codes which scales well is not easy. There is quite potential in the PGAS languages but they are not widely popularized. Finally, the teaching of scalable parallel programming requires access to the large computational systems which is not easy to obtain and even then, the operating systems and its specific features like operating and queueing systems provide students with additional challenges. In this paper we present extension of the developed by us ZawodyWeb system for on-line validation of the programs sent by the students. The ZawodyWeb system has been extended to support parallel programs written in different programming paradigms. With the help of UNICORE middleware, it allows to run students problems on the large scale production facilities. The added value is simple web interface which reduces all peculiarities of the large multiprocessor computers. The developed by us system has been verified during the parallel programming course for the undergraduate students from the computer science program.