Intel aims parallelism aid at open source fans
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OSCON Hoping to inspire people to write code that can run on its multi-core processors, Intel has open sourced one of its development packages.
Users of all shapes and sizes can now download the code for Intel's Threading Building Blocks (TBB) – a C++ template library that caters to the design of parallel code. By open-sourcing this product under the GPLv2 (General Public License), Intel expects more developers – particularly those playing with Linux – will give parallel programming a go. This is a self-serving effort in that Intel desperately needs an influx of parallel code in the coming years, so that software will run well across multi-core chips.
Intel pitches TBB as a way to remove some of the headaches associated with parallel programming, where you split up code and run it across a number of systems – in this case, cores – at the same time. Most developers have relied on writing single-threaded code that can run faster and faster as Intel or AMD's ups the GHz of its chips. These chip makers, however, have started to place less emphasis on increasing clock rates, opting to pack chips full of slower cores instead. It's unlikely that the software industry will see historical performance gains on these multi-core chips without embracing parallel programming – quickly.
TBB creates an abstraction layer that lets developers sidestep threading packages such as p-threads or Windows threads.
James Reinders, a senior engineer at Intel speaking here at the OSCON show, described TBB as a set of algorithm templates with a "well-defined" API (application programming interface) for its task scheduler. There's also a scalable memory allocator "competitive with anything out there."
TBB works with Microsoft, GNU and Intel compilers and should work with Sun's compiler in the near future. It also works with both weak and strong memory ordering.
Obviously, the software has been geared for Intel's chips, although it has been run on a G5-based Mac and could be taken to new chips now that it's open source. Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, Solaris and FreeBSD are all supported operating systems.
Intel offers commercial support for TBB 2.0 at $299. The commercial version of the software was included with the release of Intel C++ Compiler Professional Editions 10.0.
One very important note is that Intel has a TBB contest in play. Only open source coders need apply.
In addition, have a look-see as the mobile Linux project. ®
COMMENTS
Foundation Keystones
"It is a library that helps you leverage multi-core processor performance without having to be a threading expert." .... http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/
And where do those elusive butterflies/scarlett pimpernels hang out, Ashlee? Does Intel care to give us a Lead or is IT all new fangled and entangled in NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive String Theory in an Artifice of Myriad Delights ..... an Artificial Edifice in the Course of Construction and/or Erection?
Not news?
Intel only announced this 17 hours before this article appeared. Just how fast do you want el reg to jump on things? TBB itself is fairly old, but the open sourcing of it isn't, and is interesting to those looking at threading libraries. (I find it interesting that a few days worth of Intel announcements makes this an Intel rag, when AMD simply hasn't been making recent announcements. Most PR from either side gets reported here. Go home, fanboy.)
er... a bit behind
the times are we? This is not new news....
More "Product Placement" soft marketing? Is it just me, or did this place suddenly become Intelcentric?
