Abstract

Parallel processing is not so mysterious a concept as the dearth of algorithms which explicitly use it might suggest. As a rule of thumb, if N processes are performed and the outcome is independent of the order in which their steps are executed, provided that within each process the order of steps is preserved, then any or all of the processes can be performed simultaneously, if conflicts arising from multiple access to common storage can be resolved. All the elements of a matrix sum may be evaluated in parallel. The ith summand of all elements of a matrix product may be computed simultaneously. In an internal merge sort all strings in any pass may be created at the same time. All the coroutines of a separable program may be run concurrently.