BROADWAY: A SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE FORSCIENTIFIC COMPUTING \Lambda

Abstract Scientific programs rely heavily on software libraries. This paper describes thelimitations of this reliance and shows how it degrades software quality. We offer a solution that uses a compiler to automatically optimize library imple-mentations and the application programs that use them. Using examples from the PLAPACK parallel linear algebra library, we present our solution, which in-cludes a simple declarative annotation language that describes certain aspects of a library's implementation. We also show how our approach can yield simplerscientific programs that are easier to understand, modify and maintain