Poll Result: Multicore Necessitates Parallel Programming

By Kevin Farnham (108 posts) on August 10, 2007 at 2:53 pm

The result wasn't unexpected, but a solid majority of people who participated in the first ThreadingBuildingBlocks.org poll answered "yes" in response to the question "Is programming for parallelism necessary with multi-core processors?" Here is the final tally:

Is programming for parallelism necessary with multi-core processors?

Yes: 1082 votes (81.2%)

No: 136 votes (10.2%)

Probably but I do not have time to think about it: 115 votes (8.6%)

The poll was by no means scientific, and if you ask "is programming for parallelism necessary?" to an audience that's visiting a site that focuses on a method for programming for parallelism, you'd certainly expect that most people would consider parallel programming necessary -- why else would they be visiting TBB.org?

It would be interesting to hear the reasoning behind the "no" votes. Are people expecting processors to continue to get faster, fast enough that programs don't need to utilize more than one processor? Or perhaps they doubt that people actually can use the extra processing power that multicore processors provide (aside from applications like games)?

Meanwhile, I have a feeling that a great many developers who did not vote, or who have not yet visited TBB.org, would agree with the "probably but I do not have time to think about it" response. When you're working on the next release, which was promised to screaming customers 4 months ago, there's not much time to think deeply about longer term issues.

New poll: which path to parallelism?

Our first poll asked if programming for parallelism is necessary with multi-core processors. The answer was "yes." So, our new poll asks what approach people are planning to apply to enhance their programs for performance on multicore processors. Here's the new question, and the response options:

How will you modify your application to enhance performance on multicore processors?

Multithreading using traditional threading techniques

Multithreading using Threading Building Blocks

Apply another technique (new language, etc.)

We aren't planning to make any changes

To vote, go to the ThreadingBuildingBlocks.org home page. The poll is at the bottom of the right column.

Discussion of your reasons for voting the way you did is also welcome. Feel free to comment here, or in the TBB Forums, if you'd like.

Suggest a poll!

Is there a question related to Threading Building Blocks, or parallel programming, or multi-core computing, that you think would make a good polling question for the TBB community? If so, let me know, and we'll consider it for a future poll. It's your chance to help us find out what we're all thinking about!

Categories: Multicore, Open Source, Threading Building Blocks

Comments (1)

By Intel® Software Network Blogs » Blog Archive » Poll: Many Core PCs Expected Very Soon on September 30th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
[...] first poll showed that almost everyone agrees that programming for parallelism is necessary with multicore [...]