Supporting Patterns/Skeletons in a Common Object Oriented Language:

This project is concerned with parallel programming using design patterns. A design pattern describes a recurring parallel programming problem and a reusable solution to that problem. A design pattern is implemented as a reusable code skeleton for quick and reliable development of parallel applications. The challenge here is to find a model that satisfies following requirements: First, it is important that design patterns can be defined and added to the system's library in an incremental manner without requiring any major modification of the system (Extensibility). Second, customization of a parallel application should be allowed by mixing design patterns with low level parallel code resulting in a flexible and efficient parallel programming tool (Flexibility). Finally, it should be possible to implement such patterns in a common language like C++ or Java without necessarily relying on language extensions or GUIs (i.e., preprocessing stages).

Related Publications:

• D. Goswami, "A Template/Skeleton Based Approach for Developing Parallel Applications", PhD Thesis, Elec. & Comp. Eng. Dept., University of Waterloo, 1997, (in progress).
• A. Singh, J. Schaeffer and D. Szafron, "Experience with Parallel Programming Using Code Templates", Accepted for Publication, Concurrency: Practice and Experience, 1997 (30 pages).
• S. Siu and A. Singh, " Composing Parallel Applications Using Design Patterns", Submitted for Publication, 1997 (26 pages).
• S. Siu and A. Singh, "Design Patterns for Parallel Processing Using a Network of Processors", Sixth IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing, Oregon, USA, August 1997, pp. 293-304.
• M De Simone and A. Singh, "Structuring Concurrent Applications Using Active Expressions", The 11th International Symposium on High Performance Computing Systems, Winnipeg, Canada, July 1997, pp. 595-608.