ZPL: a machine independent programming language for parallel computers

Author

Chamberlain, Bradford L. ; Choi, Sung-Eun ; Lewis, E. Christopher ; Lin, Calvin ; Snyder, Lawrence ; Weathersby, W. Derrick

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci. & Eng., Washington Univ., Seattle, WA, USA

Volume

26

Issue

3

fYear

2000

fDate

3/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

197

Lastpage

211

Abstract

The goal of producing architecture-independent parallel programs is complicated by the competing need for high performance. The ZPL programming language achieves both goals by building upon an abstract parallel machine and by providing programming constructs that allow the programmer to “see” this underlying machine. This paper describes ZPL and provides a comprehensive evaluation of the language with respect to its goals of performance, portability, and programming convenience. In particular, we describe ZPt´s machine-independent performance model, describe the programming benefits of ZPL´s region-based constructs, summarize the compilation benefits of the language´s high-level semantics, and summarize empirical evidence that ZPL has achieved both high performance and portability on diverse machines such as the IBM SP-2, Cray T3E, and SGI Power Challenge

Keywords

parallel languages; parallel programming; ZPL; abstract parallel machine; architecture-independent parallel programs; high-level semantics; machine independent programming language; parallel computers; performance; portability; programming benefits; programming constructs; programming convenience; Buildings; Computer languages; Concurrent computing; Hardware; High performance computing; Laboratories; Parallel machines; Parallel processing; Parallel programming; Programming profession;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.842947

Filename

842947