Towards a domain-specific language for patterns-oriented parallel programming

Abstract

Pattern-oriented programming has been used in parallel code development for many years now. During this time, several tools (mainly frameworks and libraries) proposed the use of patterns based on programming primitives or templates. The implementation of patterns using those tools usually requires human expertise to correctly set up communication/synchronization among processes. In this work, we propose the use of a Domain Specific Language to create pattern-oriented parallel programs (DSL-POPP). This approach has the advantage of offering a higher programming abstraction level in which communication/synchronization among processes is hidden from programmers. We compensate the reduction in programming flexibility offering the possibility to use combined and/or nested parallel patterns (i.e., parallelism in levels), allowing the design of more complex parallel applications. We conclude this work presenting an experiment in which we develop a parallel application exploiting combined and nested parallel patterns in order to demonstrate the main properties of DSL-POPP. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.