Asserting the utility of using the Cowichan Problem Set

Parallel programming environments provide a way for programmers to reap the benefits of parallelism, while reducing the effort required to create parallel applications. The CO₂P₃S parallel programming system is one such tool that uses a pattern-based approach to express concurrency. Using the Cowichan Problems, we demonstrate that CO₂P₃S contains a rich set of parallel patterns for implementing a wide variety of applications running on shared-memory or distributed-memory hardware. An example of these parallel patterns, the Search-Tree pattern, is described and it is shown how the pattern was used to solve the Fifteen Puzzle problem. Code metrics and performance results are presented for the Cowichan applications to show the usability of the CO₂P₃S system and its ability to reduce programming effort, while producing programs with reasonable performance.