Recommended as a Reference Work

“Patterns for Parallel Programming” is an important work for ‘parallel programmers’.

The authors have taken the trouble to develop a kind of comprehensive guide for the creation of parallel software. This is a difficult undertaking because many points must be taken into account when creating parallel programs. Accordingly, not all aspects can be covered. But on the whole, the book is very useful.

The starting point is a sequential program that is transformed into a parallel one in four steps. OpenMP, MPI, and Java 2 1.5 are used as platforms. Each platform is briefly introduced in its own chapter in the appendix. The fact that the book is a bit older is not a major issue.

The authors have put together a practical collection of patterns. Familiar patterns, such as Master/Worker or Fork/Join, also appear. Due to its scope, however, there is likely plenty of new material to discover even for advanced parallel programmers.

However, the book has one problem: it is not easy to read from beginning to end. This is due to the organization of the material. Each of the four steps is covered in its own chapter. Each of these chapters then contains all the sub-steps, possibilities, and examples. Every example is therefore only treated step-by-step with interruptions. This disrupts the reading flow.

The book is not suitable for beginners in parallel programming. You should already have some experience to be able to follow the patterns.

As a reference work, however, the book is excellently suited. Every parallel programmer should be familiar with the contents of this book.

• Timothy G. Mattson, Beverly A. Sanders, Berna L. Massingill
• Patterns for Parallel Programming
• Addison Wesley
• 2004

See also the review on Amazon