Parallel programming for 21 years at NI

Jeff Kodosky just smirks when he talks about the software experts that say multicore processing will wreak havoc on software providers for years to come because they are not ready to tackle the problems associated with the new parallel processing capabilities of PCs today.
He chuckles because the cofounder of National Instruments and the father of LabView confidently said he created the software program 21 years ago with parallelism built into to it.
“I guess you could just call us prescient,” he said during today’s keynote address at NIWeek 07 in Austin, Texas. “The upheaval everyone will face will be a non event for you.”
He said one of the problems software programs have is they are sequential systems, but programs should not be sequences of data, but rather a flow of data.
The idea of multicore processing has been getting big play here at NIWeek. NI said the multicore machines will soon sweep through the industry as a way to hike processor capabilities. PCs today will have two processors, but soon they will have four and then switch to eight. While processors will not increase speed, they will allow for a user to run two different programs in parallel, which will increase the productivity of the computer.