Concurrent Programming Languages

Lab 1: Introduction

Question 1

What is concurrent programming? How does it relate to parallel and distributed programming?

Question 2

In which situations is parallel computing helpful? Are there any differences to distributed computing?

Question 3

What is SIMD and MIMD? Can you give an example for both models?

Question 4

What is the difference between shared and distributed memory?

Question 5

Are shared and distributed memory determined by hardware?

Question 6

How does message passing relate to distributed computing? Is it particularly related to some concepts mentioned before?

Question 7

Can every program be made faster by using concurrency?

Question 8

Can a program become slower by using concurrency?

Question 9

Are there hard limits to the speedup achievable?

Question 10

Is there something like the best language for concurrent programming?

Question 11

Looking around in the room, can you see any devices which might do concurrent programming? Can you think about additional ways to realize concurrency or parallelism?