Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!ames!pioneer!eugene
From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Thinking about parallelism ( was Re: Single tasking)
Message-ID: <3770@ames.arpa>
Date: 28 Dec 87 22:22:52 GMT
References: <3445@hoptoad.uucp> <76700007@uiucdcsp> <44@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: usenet@ames.arpa
Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 29

Just a short message:

Marty mentions parallel hardware and programmability.
>In article <76700007@uiucdcsp> johnson@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>
>>Even though this is comp.arch, I will argue that the real problem in
>>building parallel systems is finding the parallel algorithms to run on them.
>
>I agree.  There is also another problem which has to do with
>theoretical understanding of computational complexity.  Algorithm
> . . .
>It seems to me that some useful work could be done in putting together
>an algorithm complexity model which would be useful for dealing with a
>multiple processor application. . .

There is a recent book by Leah Jamieson et al on this.  If you need a
reference let me know.
Before you blame hardware, software or algorithms, the folks at LLNL and
LANL have a nice triangular symbol with all three topics (sort of like
the "fire triangle") where you need all three components to achieve
parallelism (or fire).  I think Minsky is quoted somewhere as "thinking
in threes."

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {uunet,hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix}!ames!aurora!eugene