The pilot approach to cluster programming in C
J. Carter, William B. Gardner, Gary Gréwal · 2010
The Pilot library offers a new method for programming parallel clusters in C. Formal elements from Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) were used to realize a process/channel model of parallel computation that reduces opportunities for deadlock and other communication errors. This simple model, plus an application programming interface (API) fashioned on C's formatted I/O, are designed to make the library easy for novice scientific C programmers to learn. Optional runtime services including deadlock detection help the programmer to debug communication issues. Pilot forms a thin layer on top of standard Message Passing Interface (MPI), preserving the letter's portability and efficiency, with little performance impact. MPI's powerful collective operations can still be accessed within the conceptual model.