| Author | Charles D. Norton, Boleslaw K. Szymanski and Viktor K. Decyk |
|---|---|
| Title | Object Oriented Parallel Computation for Plasma PIC Simulation |
| Year | 1995 |
| Journal | Communications of the ACM Special Issue on Object Oriented Experiences and Future Trends |
| Volume | 38(10) |
| Pages | 88-100 |
| Abstract | Object oriented techniques promise to improve the software design process by providing an application oriented view of programming while facilitating program modification and reuse. Since the software design crisis is particularly acute in parallel computation, these techniques have stirred the interest of the scientific parallel computing community. Large-scale applications of ever-growing complexity, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering, require parallel processing for efficiency. Since its introduction in the 1970's, Fortran 77 has been the language of choice to model these problems thanks to its efficiency, numerical stability, and the body of existing Fortran codes. However, the introduction of object oriented languages provides new alternatives for parallel software development. Fortran 90 adds modern extensions (including object oriented concepts) to the established methods of Fortran 77. Alternatively, object oriented methodologies can be explored through mainstream languages, such as C++. |