Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What Can You Do About It? (v2017.01.02a)

The purpose of this book is to help you program shared-memory parallel machines without risking your sanity. We hope that this book's design principles will help you avoid at least some parallel-programming pitfalls. That said, you should think of this book as a foundation on which to build, rather than as a completed cathedral. Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to help make further progress in the exciting field of parallel programming--progress that will in time render this book obsolete. Parallel programming is not as hard as some say, and we hope that this book makes your parallel-programming projects easier and more fun. In short, where parallel programming once focused on science, research, and grand-challenge projects, it is quickly becoming an engineering discipline. We therefore examine specific parallel-programming tasks and describe how to approach them. In some surprisingly common cases, they can even be automated. This book is written in the hope that presenting the engineering discipline underlying successful parallel-programming projects will free a new generation of parallel hackers from the need to slowly and painstakingly reinvent old wheels, enabling them to instead focus their energy and creativity on new frontiers. We sincerely hope that parallel programming brings you at least as much fun, excitement, and challenge that it has brought to us!