As execution speeds reach the physical limits of single cpu computers, the only hope of achieving greater computing power is with parallel systems. Researchers have proposed countless new programming languages, but their differences, similarities, strengths, weaknesses and problem domains are subtle and often not well understood. Informed comparison of parallel languages is difficult.This volume compares eight parallel programming languages based on solutions to four problems. Each chapter includes a description of the language's philosophy, semantics and syntax, and a solution to each problem. By considering solutions rather than language features or theoretical properties, the gap is bridged between the language specialists and users. Both professionals and students in the fields of computer and computational science will find the discussions helpful and understandable.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 16th International Workshop on Languages and Compilers for Parallel Computing, LCPC 2003, held in College Station, Texas, USA, in October 2003. The 35 revised full papers presented were selected from 48 submissions during two rounds of reviewing and improvement upon presentation at the workshop. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaptive optimization, data locality, parallel languages, high-level transformations, embedded systems, distributed systems software, low-level transformations, compiling for novel architectures, and optimization infrastructure.