Satisfying application user requirements: A next-generation tool environment for parallel systems

While productive use of parallel systems for business applications is quickly growing, their usage for scientific applications is far below expectations. The main reason is that programming of parallel systems is still far too complex. Starting from an analysis of the user requirements, it is the purpose of this paper to explain our strategy towards next-generation parallel programming environments. We first discuss the problem areas of parallel programming from a users point of view in detail and give an overview on existing low-, high- and intermediate-level environments. Then we summarize our research objectives, followed by a discussion of three enabling technologies to overcome current-days limitations: formal specification languages, artificial intelligence, and compiler technology. The impact of these technologies on the components proposed for a next-generation programming environment is discussed in detail. A presentation of the current status of research at the CSCS concludes the paper, summarizing present-days results of a project on intelligent programming environments and of the Joint CSCS-ETH/NEC Collaboration in Parallel Processing.