Key Concepts

Programming with Intel® Cilk™ Plus is a departure from traditional serial programming. Certain key concepts require explanation in order for you to write programs that perform and scale well.

The following concepts are key:

• strands: the structure of an Intel® Cilk™ Plus program is best understood as a graph of strands connecting parallel control points.
• work, span, and parallelism: the expected performance of an Intel® Cilk™ Plus program can be analyzed in terms of work, span, and parallelism.