The concepts of HPC: The formalization of hierarchical massively parallel computing

Abstract

It is becoming clear that software of all kind are growing in complexity. Production quality code plagued with bugs and security issues that are impossible to test for is becoming commonplace, and HPC is no exception. It is therefore necessary to grasp all means of ruling out faulty code and aiding programmers in expressing their intent. C++ is still the dominant language in HPC and with its recent rapid development, a turning point is imminent when the gains of reformulating existing code will outweigh the costs. The current study is a roundtrip of accumulated changes in C++11, C++14 and the coming C++17 standard, new best practices, patterns and idioms that should make their way to the foundations of HPC software. Such drastic changes will result in faster and safer programs with decreased development time.