The Economist has posted an interesting feature on the difficulties of parallel programming, which is becoming a big problem now that even mobile devices are multicore. It’s well-worth a read, as it goes on to quote Cray’s Steve Scott and LBNL’s Katherine Yelick.
“The problem is still far from solved. But serious efforts are finally being made to make parallel programming easier and more approachable. Will the tools to take advantage of multicore chips come from a trickle-down of high-end scientific computing techniques, the extension of existing programming languages or the spread of previously obscure languages, driven by the needs of web developers? More than one of these paths may prove successful. And, appropriately enough, the search for new parallel-programming techniques is itself a parallel process.
