CMU 15-418 Lecture 01

Course Main Theme

1. Designing and writing parallel programs —— scale! (规模)
   • Parallel thing
     1. Decomposing(分解) the work into pieces that can safely be performed in parallel
     2. Assigning work to processors
     3. Managing communication/synchronization(同步) between the processors so that it does not limit speedup
2. Parallel computer hardware implemtation: how parallel computers work
   • Mechanisms(机制) used to implement abstractions effeciently
     1. Performance(性能) characteristics of implementations
     2. Design trade-offs: performance vs. convenience vs. cost
3. Thinking about efficiency
   • Fast $\neq$ Efficient
   • Your program runs faster on a parallel computer, it deos not mean it is using the hardware efficiently.