Simple distributed example for learning purposes?

[Mike Driscoll]

On Dec 26 2009, 2:06 pm, Tim Golden <m... at timgolden.me.uk> wrote:
> I'm trying to work up a programming course using Python,
> aimed at secondary school students [*] here in London. One
> of my aims is to have a series of compact but functional
> examples, each demonstrating a particular field in which
> Python (and programming) can be useful.
>
> I'm trying to come up with something which will illustrate
> the usefulness of a distributed processing model. Since I
> may not be using the term "distributed" exactly, my
> criteria are:
>
> * It should be clear that the application produces results
> sooner when run via multiple cooperating computers
> than when run on one.
>
> * The problem being solved should be broadly comprehensible by
> the students. This rules out some abstruse mathematical
> calculation which would benefit from multiple processors but
> which will fail to engage their interest.
>
> * I don't mind using / installing some library as a black box
> so long as the other criteria are met. This is at least partly
> because I want the code to be compact and I'm quite happy to
> point to a library call and say "this does the hard work".
>
> I'm not asking anyone to write code: what I'm after is some sort
> of problem space which will meet my criteria. Part of the issue
> is that computers are just so fast these days that almost anything
> I can come up with can be managed so quickly on one laptop that
> the overhead of distribution (or of the IO) will dwarf the benefits
> of distributing.
>
> The kind of things I've considered briefly include: speech recognition;
> image analysis; large scale indexing (effectively: building a search
> engine). At present I'm looking at that last one, not least because I
> have little knowledge of the other domains so there's a overhead for
> me in setting the example up.
>
> Any suggestions, either from your own experience of something similar,
> or from sheer inspiration, will be gratefully received.
>
> Thanks
>
> TJG
>
> [*] roughly, ages 14-18

I think distributed transcoding of hi-def videos would be cool, but I
haven't found much with Google. Still, you might find this useful for
your project:

http://pypi.python.org/pypi/AsynCluster/0.3

For reasons I don't understand, the home page listed in that link is
blocked here.

-------------------
Mike Driscoll

Blog:   http://blog.pythonlibrary.org

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