Explicit Parallel Programming: User's Guide

Abstract

The Explicit Parallel Programming (EPP) language is defined and illustrated with several examples. EPP is a prototype implementation of a language for writing parallel programs for shared memory multiprocessors. EPP may be viewed as a coordination language, since it is used to define the sequencing or ordering of various tasks, while the tasks themselves are defined in some other compilable language. The prototype described here requires FORTRAN as the base language, but there is no inherent reason why some other imperative language could not be used instead. EPP encourages a structured and readable style of writing parallel programs, and it allows virtually any type of parallelism to be expressed. It maintains as strict a separation as possible between the two main components of a parallel program: semantic actions and logic sequencing. This paper is intended for the first-time user of EPP.