High Performance Computing

Reviewed by Thomas Moser, Adjunct Professor, Mount Wachusett Community College on 6/29/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 2 see less

The Introduction states: "The purpose of this book has always been to teach new programmers and scientists about the basics of High Performance Computing. ... to the practicing Chemistry student, Physicist, or Biologist who need to write and run their programs as part of their research." The book is a re-release of a title from the late 1990s and, while excellent in the material covered, it is no longer comprehensive and cannot, by itself, meet its intended purpose.

The book introduces computer architecture and memory hierarchies and does a masterful job of explaining concepts relevant to a traditional, shared memory processor. It does not cover memory locality within the context of modern high performance clusters, massively parallel processing and web-distributed high performance computing.

Compilers and basic optimization if well explained but modern parallel languages, libraries and frameworks are only very briefly introduced; where they are mentioned the languages used in the examples are very outdated (FORTRAN). No mention is made of high performance computing on a GPU platform or using FPGA or ASIC hardware.

Previous comments notwithstanding, this book is an excellent introduction to the topics covered and could, in conjunction with additional material to bring the student "up to date", serve as one text in an introductory course.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The material is very accurate; I found no errors of fact or interpretation.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

Refer to my comments on Comprehensiveness. The book uses examples from very old programming languages, it does not cover major approaches and techniques used today. It draws a strong distinction between CISC and RISC when all modern microprocessors are microcoded, which is not discussed at all.

The book is very good for the material covered but it falls short in exploring the breadth and depth of modern High Performance Computing.

Clarity rating: 3

Very clear and concise writing. The examples may not be clear to a student unfamiliar with older languages e.g. FORTRAN.

Consistency rating: 4

I found clear and consistent terminology throughout.

Modularity rating: 3

While the material in the book builds on concepts and ideas it has several sub-units (e.g. floating point) which could be presented out or order or as a standalone learning unit for a different course.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Topics are introduced in a logical order and in a a well-structured way.

Interface rating: 5

I found no issues with the interface.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I am unaware of any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

As a high technical text there are no overt or implicit assumptions about the race or culture of the readers. The material is technical in nature and does not touch upon sensitive cultural issues.

Comments

This book is very well written and would serve as an excellent text with a companion book or as supplemental material. It could also be easily updated by an instructor with examples in a more modern language (e.g. Java).