The Template Task Graph (TTG) - an emerging practical dataflow programming paradigm for scientific simulation at extreme scale

We describe TESSE, an emerging general-purpose, open-source software ecosystem that attacks the twin challenges of programmer productivity and portable performance for advanced scientific applications on modern high-performance computers. TESSE builds upon and extends the ParsecDAG/-dataflow runtime with a new Domain Specific Languages (DSL) and new integration capabilities. Motivating this work is our belief that such a dataflow model, perhaps with applications composed in domain specific languages, can overcome many of the challenges faced by a wide variety of irregular applications that are poorly served by current programming and execution models. Two such applications from many-body physics and applied mathematics are briefly explored. This paper focuses upon the Template Task Graph (TTG), which is TESSE's main C++ Api that provides a powerful work/data-flow programming model. Algorithms on spatial trees, block-sparse tensors, and wave fronts are used to illustrate the API and associated concepts, as well as to compare with related approaches.