Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 1st Apr 2008 15:52 UTC, submitted by Dan Warne
Intel today revealed it can convert single threaded software to multithreaded mode without any code modification. The new 'speculative parallel threading' process monitors software and examines whether its processes can be run in parallel. If they can execute succesfully, the software can be recompiled to run as a multithreaded app. Intel says it has realised that programmers are going to need machine help to get software running as multithreaded. "We can't blame the programmers," an Intel spokesman said. "The industry has been complaining for 30 years about how difficult parallel programming is."
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Member since:
2006-05-09
It's true. There is at least one startup in Massachussets that has been trying the same approach. The problem is, it's just not very effective. For example, I doubt that it can parallelize a quicksort algorithm, a perfect candidate for parallel processing. If it were any good, Intel, Microsoft and AMD would not continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into research labs around the world to find a solution to the parallel programming problem.
Truth is, Intel is scared. They are already comitted to the multithreaded route and, at this late stage of the game, they can't go back and change their multicore strategy without losing billions of dollars. Too bad. In my opinion, that's exactly what's going to happen. To find out why multithreading is not part of the future of parallel programming, read 'Nightmare on Core Street':
http://rebelscience.blogspot.com/2008/03/nightmare-on-core-street.h...