Expert Programmer versus Parallelising Compiler: A comparative study of two approaches for distributed shared memory

. This paper critically examines current parallel programming practice and optimising compiler development. The general strategies employed by compiler and programmer to optimise a Fortran program are described, and then illustrated for a specific case by applying them to a well known scientific program, TRED2, using the KSR-1 as the target architecture. Extensive measurement is applied to the resulting versions of the program, which are compared with a version produced by a commercial optimising compiler, KAP. The compiler strategy significantly outperforms KAP, and does not fall far short of the performance achieved by the programmer. Following the experimental section each approach is critiqued by the other. Perceived flaws, advantages and common ground are outlined, with an eye to improving both schemes. Keywords: Distributed Shared Memory, Expert Programmer, Parallelising Compiler, Performance Analysis, Linear Algebra. 1 Introduction Obtaining high performance from parallel compu..