Re: [boost] Is there interest in parallel versions of <algorithm> functions?

From: Benjamin A. Collins (ben.collins_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-09 05:54:12

On Thu, Jun 08, 2006 at 03:53:46AM -0600, Clint Levijoki wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> This is actually a 2 part interest inquiry:
> 
> 1. I think there could be some usefulness in parallel versions of the
> algorithm functions, like for_each and find and unique_copy.
> 
> 2. In the couple days of r&d I have come up with a class named
> parallel_task_master which runs a thread function many times over and
> manages them so you keep your thread counts low and working as hard as
> possible.  So if you have a quad-core cpu it can be specified so you never
> go over a 4 thread limit.  It's also setup so you can keep adding tasks
> recursively and it will keep the thread count fixed and never deadlock.
> 
> Because the tasks in parallel_task_master run relatively in order, I think
> some sort of queue could be made to parallelize functions that needed to
> return output in a serial form.  So it could be used to decode video stream
> packets for example.
> 
> This parallel_task_master in itself may have some value alone, but it was
> written to assist in creating parallel version of the functions in
> <algorithm>.  Some of them are not so parallelizable, some are
> embarrassingly so.

I think this could be interesting.  My there is a research group at
alma mater that deals with parallel algorithms and such, and has a
project along these lines.  I know the people involved (some of them),
but I don't know if they'd be willing to share project sources.  I
suspect that they would.  Either way, the papers are published and you
may find them useful.  Note that Bjarne is one of the faculty members
involved in this project.

Go here to find out about STAPL (Standard Template Adaptive Parallel Library):
http://parasol.tamu.edu/groups/rwergergroup/research/stapl/

bc
--
Benjamin Collins <ben.collins_at_[hidden]>