Newsgroups: comp.parallel
From: lipman@cam.nist.gov (Robert R Lipman)
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Parallel Applications Development Environment (PADE)
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Date: 29 May 1995 15:16:26 GMT
Message-ID: <3qcoga$21c@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>

Version 1.2 of the Parallel Applications Development Environment (PADE) 
produced at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
has been released for public use.  

This is a major new version of PADE.  The changes since version 1.0 are 
listed below.

PADE was developed by a team of physical scientists and applied mathematicians 
as a response to their experiences in developing parallel message-passing 
applications running on heterogeneous workstation networks.  

PADE provides a virtual console, in the form of a graphical interface running 
on a single workstation (the development host), which utilizes a 
parallel "make" utility to support all phases of parallel application 
development: file transfer, compilation, execution, debugging, and editing.

All source files reside on the development host, and are supplied to the 
nodes of the virtual machine as required.  A graphical display of the virtual 
machine depicts all nodes and their associated files, and allows file structure
modification by standard point-and-click interface.

PADE is constructed from standard, freely-available software components.  
PVM is used for all virtual machine communications.
Tcl/Tk (7.3/3.6) is used for the graphical interface.  

Current information on PADE is maintained on the World Wide Web at:

      http://physics.nist.gov/ResOpp/hpcc/pade.html
      
(This Web page is being updated for version 1.2, so if you get the page for
version 1.0, try back in a day or so for the new page.)

The current release of PADE 1.2 may be obtained by anonymous ftp to:

      ftp://gams.nist.gov/pub/pade/

The current distribution consists of a 344k gzipped tar file, approximately 
4M when decompressed.  The bulk of this distribution consists of an illustrated
reference manual in PostScript, HTML, and ASCII formats.

Inquiries and suggestions are welcome by e-mail to: pade@cam.nist.gov
      
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes Since Version 1.0
        
  The major changes to PADE since the release of Version 1.0 are:

    o Added capability to selectively send files to remote hosts

    o Moved functions of the Setup window (adding hosts and files, opening and 
      saving PADE files) to the Main window under the File and Setup menus and 
      Graph button

    o Renamed the Tree View to Graph

    o Moved functions of the Run menu to the PVMmake menu and Apps menu

    o Moved functions of the Monitor menu to the Apps menu

    o Moved function of setting preferences under the Help menu to the
      Preferences menu under the File menu

    o Moved function of the Exit button to File menu

    o Added Undo and Sort buttons

    o Modified hosts and files manipulation capabilities in the Graph
      to have the same capabilities as those under the Setup menu
      
    o Added a .paderc file to save user preferences and other information

    o PADE can now be invoked with the name of a PADE data file on the
      command line

    o Made the "look and feel" of the graphical user interface more
      "standard", for example: File menu, accelerator keys, pasting selections 
      into entry windows, double-clicking to pick items in a listbox

    o The PVMmake configuration file is no longer automatically written.  
      It must be saved under the PVMmake menu

    o Removed NIST-specific directories in pvm_tidy

    o Added -ep option to padeinituser, to specify what directory to
      initialize
      
    o Major revision of the Installation and User's Manuals    

-- 
Bob Lipman / NIST / Bldg 225 Rm B146 / Gaithersburg, MD 20899
(301) 975-3829 / lipman@cam.nist.gov

