Message passing without send-receive

  • Authors:
  • Sergei Gorlatch

  • Affiliations:
  • Technische Universität Berlin, Fakultät IV, Franklinstr. 28/29, D-10587 Berlin, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Future Generation Computer Systems - Parallel computing technologies (PaCT-2001)
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

During the software crisis in the 1960s, Dijkstra's famous thesis "goto considered harmful" paved the way for structured programming. We suggest that current difficulties in parallel programming are a consequence of using low-level send-receive primitives. We argue that, like goto in sequential programs, send-receive should be avoided as far as possible and replaced by collective operations in the parallel setting. We dispute some widely held beliefs about the alleged superiority of communication based on send-receive and present both theoretical and empirical evidence that collective operations are a better alternative.