Test-driven repair of data races in structured parallel programs

Abstract

A common workflow for developing parallel software is as follows: 1) start with a sequential program, 2) identify subcomputations that should be converted to parallel tasks, 3) insert synchronization to achieve the same semantics as the sequential program, and repeat steps 2) and 3) as needed to improve performance. Though this is not the only approach to developing parallel software, it is sufficiently common to warrant special attention as parallel programming becomes ubiquitous. This paper focuses on automating step 3), which is usually the hardest step for developers who lack expertise in parallel programming.