Exploiting parallelism in the solution of scientific and computational engineering problems requires significant expertise and effort on the part of application developers. We describe a framework targeted at the class of discrete-time grid simulations that hides much of the complexity inherent in the parallel solution of those problems. By doing so this programming framework offers the potential to reduce developer training and software development time, and improve the quality of the resulting simulation software. Software engineering concerns are important; however, they need not stand in the way of high performance. Our framework is designed to enable efficient solution to simulation problems and to allow developers to address simulation problems that have a high degree of dynamism and irregularity. We evaluate both the usability and performance of the framework as applied to a standard finite-difference computation. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The demand for computer science education on the college campus is rapidly increasing. This is due to the ever expanding market for computer expertise in industry, government, and academia. The growth in the need for off-campus computer science instruction is also phenomenal. Professionals in areas other than computer science—engineering, business, etc.—need to acquire computing skills. Computer scientists need to continually keep pace with the rapidly evolving computer technology. This training must be available at sites remote from the college campus. In the era of overall decreasing college enrollments, computer science educators are being requested to service this off-campus market.

A system for preparation and manipulation of color graphics video frames is described. The system commands are designed for use by a class instructor (who is not a computer science person) in preparation and delivery of lectures to a remote site. The system can provide the types of images, overlays, and coloring that could be drawn using transparency sheets and color pens, or that could prepared as 35 mm technical slides (not photographs, but text and diagrams). The hardware consists of standardly available input, display, and output components. Several hardware alternatives are noted so that cost and capability tradeoffs can be compared. Communication between the instructor's site and the remote class site uses standard telephone lines for transmission of participants' voices and for digital graphics commands and compressed image data. The system software is yet in experimental form. It is in BASIC, but in modular form. While none of the individual components or graphics concepts in this system is in itself dramatically new, the integrated system demonstrates an important advancement in state-of-the-art for remote instruction.

Abstract The process of transporting Brinch Hansen's implementation of Concurrent PASCAL to another minicomputer is described. Applicable porting strategies are discussed with emphasis on the design decisions made for a specific transportation. Important design decisions include the use of a virtual code interpreter and implementation in an operating system environment. The problems of this transportation are illustrated with accompanying suggestions for a more portable system.

The common instructional approach in first programming courses is to consider jointly programming technique and coding in a particular language. This has the inherent disadvantage of focusing on language details at the expense of the skills of problem solving. As an alternative, a separated, but coordinated, course in programming concepts and a laboratory on language coding are proposed. We submit that this approach allows emphasis to be placed on the creative aspects of problem solving and programming, and that it allows an efficiency in concepts instruction, through avoidance of language details, and an efficiency in language instruction by using algorithms developed in the concepts course. A suggested selection of concepts is given, and the separation of responsibilities between the program development and coding are illustrated.