Chapter 6. Application Patterns

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

—Alan J. Perlis, Epigrams in Programming

over the last few chapters we have implemented useful communication and synchronization patterns, using distributed data structures, that allow remote processes to coordinate their activities. Often, frameworks for entire space-based applications express themselves in a few tried-and-true patterns as well.

In this chapter we will cover some simple, yet powerful, application frameworks, built from distributed data structures we're already familiar with. You'll find that you may be able to model your spaced-based applications on one of these patterns, or some combination or variant of the patterns. And, given what you learn in this chapter, you'll no doubt start inventing your own customized application frameworks.

Our first two examples present useful parallel application patterns—frameworks for solving compute-intensive problems in terms of smaller tasks that can be computed concurrently. As a third example, we'll introduce a framework for producers and consumers of resources. Then we'll discuss further application patterns you may wish to explore.