More reasons why OpenMP is the way to go for parallel programming
Expanding on my earlier article about Why OpenMP is the way to go for parallel programming, I would like to point out a couple more strengths of OpenMP. And the best thing about this is: I do not have to do it myself this time, because OpenMP evangelist Ruud van der Pas has already done the work in his nice article on Using OpenMP to parallelize for CMT. Therefore I will just tease you with the main advantages he has come up with (shamelessly copied from his article):
- Portable – Every major hardware vendor and several ISVs provide an OpenMP compiler
- Modest programming effort – Implementing OpenMP is usually fairly easy compared to other programming models
- Incremental parallelization – One can implement the parallelization step by step
- Local impact – Often, the OpenMP specific part in an application is relatively small
- Easier to test – By not compiling for OpenMP you “de-activate” it
- Natural mapping onto CMT architectures – OpenMP maps elegantly onto a CMT processor
- Assistance from tools – You get a compiler to help you
- Preserves sequential program – If done correctly, you can have your sequential program still built in
Pretty nice and long list, don’t you think? Now the only remaining question is, why I did not come up with all those reasons for my last article 😀 . Anyways, if you ever get the chance to visit one of Ruuds presentations, I encourage you to grab that chance and listen to him, as he has very interesting stories to tell (had the pleasure to listen to him at this years IWOMP conference and learned a great deal from it). It’s a shame he is not blogging more often 😉 …