The OpenMP Common Core

Book excerpt: How to become a parallel programmer by learning the twenty-one essential components of OpenMP. This book guides readers through the most essential elements of OpenMP—the twenty-one components that most OpenMP programmers use most of the time, known collectively as the “OpenMP Common Core.” Once they have mastered these components, readers with no prior experience writing parallel code will be effective parallel programmers, ready to take on more complex aspects of OpenMP. The authors, drawing on twenty years of experience in teaching OpenMP, introduce material in discrete chunks ordered to support effective learning. OpenMP was created in 1997 to make it as simple as possible for applications programmers to write parallel code; since then, it has grown into a huge and complex system. The OpenMP Common Core goes back to basics, capturing the inherent simplicity of OpenMP. After introducing the fundamental concepts of parallel computing and history of OpenMP's development, the book covers topics including the core design pattern of parallel computing, the parallel and worksharing-loop constructs, the OpenMP data environment, and tasks. Two chapters on the OpenMP memory model are uniquely valuable for their pedagogic approach. The key for readers is to work through the material, use an OpenMP-enabled compiler, and write programs to experiment with each OpenMP directive or API routine as it is introduced. The book's website, updated continuously, offers a wide assortment of programs and exercises.