The multicore era comes with new challenges for software engineers. The Software Languages Lab and its Parallel Programming Group does research on languages and language runtimes/virtual machines for the new era of multi- and manycore hardware. This talk gives a brief introduction to the problem and names our approaches to tackle the challenges. However, since this is presented as a Pecha Kucha, the talk is very abstract and focuses on conveying the theme instead of technical details.

2. Mul$core
is
the
Norm
2
Cores
12
Cores
64
Cores
Netbook
Worksta$on
Embedded
System

3. CPUs
don’t
get
Faster
But
Mul$ply
GHz
3.8
4
3.33
3
6
cores
2
1.5
1
0.2
0
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010

4. Power
Wall
at
4
GHz

5. Power
≈
Voltage2

Frequency
Voltage
=
-­‐15%
Power
=
1
Frequency
=
-­‐15%
Performance
≈
1.8

6. The
Free
Lunch
is
Over!
*Excl.
Performance
Charge

7. Parallelism
with
Mainstream
Approaches
is
Hard!

8. Mainstream:
Shared
State
+
Locks
int
i
=
4
i
=
3
||
i
=
5
|
i
|
i
:=
4
i
:=
3
||
i
:=
5
(define
i
4)
(set!
i
3)
||
(set!
i
5)

9. How
Much
is
the
Lunch?
Experts
Only
Mere
Mortals

10. Experts
Build
Complex
Infrastructure
Using
Mainstream
Approaches

11. Mainstream
Approaches
are
not
Problem-­‐oriented

12. How
to
program
parallel
with
ease?

13. Root
of
all
Evil:
Shared
Mutable
State
int
i
=
4
i
=
3
||
i
=
5
|
i
|
i
:=
4
i
:=
3
||
i
:=
5
(define
i
4)
(set!
i
3)
||
(set!
i
5)

14. Actors

15. Legacy
Socware
and
Sequen$al
Problems?

16. Automa$c
Paralleliza$on!

17. Coevolu$on
of
Languages
and
Run$mes

18. The
Virtual
Machine
of
Tomorrow
Hardware
Language
Smarter
Support
Support
Run$mes

19. ?
an !
Hector
Scheme
ActPigoo
ContextSTM

20. PPP:
Parallel
Programming
GrouP
Bruno Pascal Tom
De Fraine Costanza Van Cutsem
Theo D’Hondt
Charlotte Joeri Stefan Yves
Herzeel De Koster Marr Vandriessche