The ICE abstraction may take CS from serial
(single-core) computing to effective parallel
(many-core) computing.
BY uzi Vishkin
using simple
abstraction
to Reinvent
computing for
Parallelism

the ReCeNt DRamatIC shift from single-processor computer systems to many-processor parallel ones requires reinventing much of computer science to build and program the new systems. CS urgently requires convergence to a robust parallel general-purpose platform providing good performance

 

and programming easy enough for all CS students and graduates. Unfortunately, ease-of-programming objectives have eluded parallel-computing research over at least the past four decades. The idea of starting with an established easy-to-apply parallel programming model and building an architecture for it has been treated as radical by hardware and software vendors alike. Here, I advocate an even more radical parallel programming and architecture idea: Start with a simple abstraction encapsulating the desired interface between programmers and system builders.

key;insights

computing can be reinvented for parallelism, from parallel algorithms through programming to hardware, preempting the technical barriers inhibiting use of parallel machines.

moving beyond the serial von neumann computer (the only successful general-purpose platform to date), computer science will again be able to augment mathematical induction with a simple one-line computing abstraction.

Being able to think algorithmically in parallel is a significant advantage for systems developers and programmers building and programming multi-core machines.