Intel has released version 0.3.0 of its Concurrent Collections for C/C++. Intel Concurrent Collections for C/C++ 0.3.0, which can be downloaded here, provides a mechanism for constructing C++ programs that executes in parallel while allowing application developers to ignore issues of parallelism such as low-level threading constructs or the scheduling and distribution of computations. The model lets programmers specify high-level computational steps including inputs and outputs without imposing unnecessary ordering on their execution. Code within the computational steps is written using standard serial constructs of the C++ language. Data is either local to a computational step or it is explicitly produced and consumed by them. An application in this programming model supports multiple styles of parallelism (e.g., data, task, pipeline parallel). While the interface between the computational steps and the runtime system remains unchanged, a wide range of runtime systems may target different architectures (e.g., shared memory, distributed) or support different scheduling methodologies (e.g., static or dynamic). Intel provides a runtime system for shared memory systems that supports parallel execution although it is not yet highly optimized.

Among the new and updated features Release 0.3.0 includes are:

Performance improvements. Steps can now be specified with different priorities to improve performance. See 1.1.4 Attributes for steps in the Intel Concurrent Collections for C/C++ Reference Manual.

Memory usage improvement. Garbage collection by ref-counting is now supported to reduce memory usage. See 1.1.5 Attributes for items in the Intel Concurrent Collections for C/C++ Reference Manual.

Samples added. MatrixInversion demonstrates the new ref-counting feature

Translator license expiration date. The license for the translator (cnc.exe) in the download package expires on 12/31/2009.

Documents updated. Intel Concurrent Collections for C/C++ Reference Manual

Problems fixed. The cnc.exe (translator) "The system cannot execute the specified program" problem that occurs when VS2005 SP1 is not installed on the system has been fixed.

For more information, see the What's New with Release 0.3.0 section in the release notes.