Shared-memory vs. message-passing
An old debate that is not that much important any longer
- Many systems are built to support a mixture of both paradigms
- Shared virtual memory (e.g., network of workstations; coherence at the page level, also called “distributed shared memory”)
Shared-memory pros
- Ease of programming; good for communication of small items; less overhead of O.S.; hardware-based cache coherence
Message-passing pros
- Simpler hardware (more scalable); explicit communication (both good and bad), easier for long messages
- Use of message passing libraries