IEEE Computer Society Addresses Multicore Programming Challenges
Over a span of time, it has been observed that the new languages usually infiltrate computing initiatives with regards to a significant development in the computing hardware landscape. Multicore is considered as a radical hardware development in the software engineering sphere. Apart from its cap ability to considerably advance computing performance, multicore can also influence our everyday life. Parallel processing systems are tedious and expensive to set up also require a high level of knowledge to develop the design. With the advent of multicore programming, an average programmer needs to develop a high efficiency level. Furthermore, to harness the complete potential of multi-core systems you need to create new computing practices along with languages.
The main issue is the complexity in writing parallel programs. It is much more complex than writing sequential programs. Apart from that, there is the lack of foundational expertise about the processes and tools available and on how to use them. IT analysts like Joe Hummel asserts, “The hardware is advancing, but software hasn’t kept up. The crux of the problem is it is important for a growing minority of people to know about this. But it’s hard to create that software.”
Multicore users are required to identify and then re-write their applications if they aim to achieve high performance levels. It propels each programmer to graduate to a parallel programmer, to take in their chips as groups and manage issues about communication, synchronization and data transfer as important aspects of their algorithms. For the ones who are used to parallel programming, multicore processors can add a new level of parallelism and complementary layers of intricacy.
Therefore, it is a challenge for the software developers to detect and collect all the tools and data needed by them to write software for multicore. Hummel also says that certain universities today offer classes in parallel processing as institutions are researching to find out the way it seamlessly merges with the curriculum.
To make this process easy, the IEEE Computer Society course addresses the multiple challenges pertaining to multicore programming that starts from over viewing dual-core IA programming, MKL, compiler switches, and profilers and shifting on to programming with Open MP, POSIX, Windows, virtualization and multicore software infrastructure as well as debugging. The course also includes threaded programming migration case studies, and the scalability of threaded applications. IEEE
Computer Society offers an online digital library and useful computer magazines online that offers useful insights on multicore programming.