Most computers today are 'multicore' parallel computers that are capable of executing several independent threads of computation simultaneously. Unfortunately, most existing programs are not parallel and cannot take advantage of this hardware capability. Furthermore, writing parallel programs using current notations like OpenMP is more difficult than writing sequential programs and, as a result, increases development costs and the likelihood of program defects.
The Kali project is building a software system that will permit most application programmers to write sequential programs and still obtain good performance on multicore processors. Parallelism will be hidden within object-oriented class libraries written by expert parallel programmers and it will be managed by a sophisticated runtime system that uses a range of parallel execution strategies customized to the needs of the application. Applications programmers can take advantage of the benefits of sequential programming such as familiarity, readability, maintainability, and debuggability. They will also be able to tune program performance and power without having to drop down to a lower abstraction level. In addition, the Kali project is studying the use of innovative hardware to facilitate the development of efficient programs. Finally, the project is producing a suite of application benchmarks that will be useful for performance evaluation of similar systems.
