Book Review: Multicore and GPU Programming: An Integrated Approach

I wanted to like this book, Multicore and GPU Programming: An Integrated Approach, and be able to use it in the classroom.  I teach a class where we cover OpenMP, MPI, Cilk, and Cuda.  Yet, I would not use this book and I have told the publishers this as well, to which they acknowledged my reasoning.

First, the author elects to use QtThreads for the base parallel programming approach.  He notes that he had considered using pthreads or C++11 thread support, and comments that he rejected C++11 threads for the book as the support was incomplete at the time.  Pthreads is left without comment.  That may be, but I have heard of and used those options, while QtThreads is something that I have never considered.

Second, the book serves as an admirable API reference.  For one or a set of function calls, significant space is dedicated to how that call works and illustrating examples for it.  Structured Parallel Programming also covers many APIs, yet it maintains a feel of being about parallel programming in general rather that the calls specifically.  However, that work covers different API sets so the two are not explicitly comparable.

Third, and this issue is really more for the editors rather than the author, the typesetting on each page is poor.  There is significant white space left bordering the text on each page.  Furthermore, the code wraps, and often not for being long code, but for long comments and comments on the same line as the code.  I understand that in programming these are stylistic choices; however, the impact of finding line wraps from long comments leaves the text looking unprofessional.  I must assume that the author wrote the code separately and then provided for being included into the book, but the editor failed to make allowances for typesetting.

In conclusion, I wanted to like and use the book.  Whenever I speak with the publisher, they always direct me to it, I just have to hope for something else to come along.  Use it as a reference perhaps, but I am cautious in my recommendation.

(This book was provided free by the publisher to review for possible use in the classroom.)