The Automobile Analogy Throughout the Introduction to Parallel Programming section, images of automobiles will be displayed. These images are links to the automobile analogy documentation. This analogy compares the process of building an automobile to that of programming a parallel computer.
Automobile manufacturing is a good example of parallelism.
In automobile manufacturing construction of the automobile components are done in parallel. The engine, headlights, body, drive train, etc., are built by different companies simultaneously and their output is coordinated to arrive at the assembly plant at the appropriate time. The task of manufacturing the components for a single car by one person is not really within the realm of possibilities. Breaking this task into smaller tasks and assigning them to different companies makes what was an impossible task into one that is quite manageable. By the same token, a complex program can be broken down into smaller tasks and distributed among different processors to perform the same task faster and more efficiently.