Summary

The PVM library is a flexible library that supports the major models of parallel programming. The advantage of a PVM environment is its ability to work with heterogeneous collections of computers that may consist of different processor speeds, sizes, and architectures. Besides hardware compatibility, it works nicely with the C++ standard library and with the UNIX/Linux system library. When combined with the C++ template capabilities, object-oriented programming capabilities, and collection of algorithms, the power of the PVM environment is increased considerably. The template facility has a nice application to SPMD programming. The containers and algorithms can be used to enhance the MIMD (MPMD) capabilities of the PVM. In Chapter 13, we dig a little deeper into the PVM and show how it can be used to help implement blackboards using C++. The blackboard is one of our primary choices for implementing parallel problem solving.