{"id":1450,"date":"2009-06-24T22:22:47","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T21:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2009-06-24T23:21:33","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T22:21:33","slug":"meet-joe-duffy-parallel-programming-talk-isntv-30062009-4pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.craigmurphy.com\/blog\/?p=1450","title":{"rendered":"Meet Joe Duffy – Parallel Programming Talk @isntv 30\/06\/2009 4PM GMT"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s fair to say that today’s processors are getting pretty advanced.\u00a0 The arrival of dual core processors marked a significant change in processor design and the performance we can expect from them.\u00a0 Whatever your beliefs about the limitations and upper limits of Moore’s Law<\/a> for single core processors, multicore processors are here to stay.\u00a0 And with multicore (or manycore), as developers, there’s a whole new way of programming to master: parallel programming<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Microsoft has recognised this with their Task Parallel Library<\/a>\u00a0(with a focus on the .NET architecture here<\/a>).\u00a0 Indeed, Microsoft’s commitment and vision in the parallel space, particularly for developers is recognised by those on the ground and by those further up the corporate ladder: \u201cMicrosoft\u2019s goal is to make the benefits of building software on manycore architectures simple and accessible to the broad developer community.\u201d<\/em> –\u00a0 S. Somasegar.<\/p>\n

Processor manufacturers are keen to promote development for manycore.\u00a0 It’s easy enough to sell processors (or so I believe), however if programmers have to re-align their development techniques and thinking,\u00a0writing applications that run on manycore devices is going to mean a change to the rules.\u00a0 Historically, programmers have shyed away from parallel and concurrent programming.\u00a0 The challenges of understanding and dealing with race conditions, task-to-task communication and synchronisation have played\u00a0their part in chasing developers away.\u00a0 In the concurrent programming space, predictability, re-orderability, reconciliation and data stability cause similar concerns.<\/p>\n

Intel<\/a> are in the software library space too, they have their Intel\u00ae Parallel Studio<\/a>\u00a0which promises to deliver simplified, end-to-end parallelism to Microsoft Visual Studio C\/C++ developers.\u00a0 Indeed, Intel are providing considerable support<\/a> for those of us learning parallel whether it’s as a beginner or an advanced practitioner.<\/p>\n

June 2009 saw Intel<\/a> launch their own on-line TV channel: the\u00a0Intel\u00ae<\/sup> Software Network TV<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of course, you can follow the show on Twitter: @isntv<\/a><\/p>\n

Whilst the channel isn’t 100% dedicated to parallel programming, there are two specific shows of interest:<\/p>\n