1. A method which may be used by a software developer to configure partitioning of parallel data for parallel processing, the method comprising the steps of: obtaining a data partitioning interface, namely, obtaining at least one procedure heading for invoking a procedure to create a data partitioning and obtaining at least one procedure heading for invoking a procedure to obtain a data element from a data partition, the data partitioning having an organizational structure which is unspecified in the data partitioning interface and in particular the data partitioning interface being free of an organizational structure which specifies data element partitions based on whether data elements are replicated and also being free of an organizational structure which specifies data element partitions based on where data elements are replicated; and associating a data partitioning implementation with the data partitioning interface, namely, associating at least one procedure body which implements creation of a data partitioning and at least one procedure body which implements obtaining a data element from a data partition for parallel processing with at least one other parallel data element, the organizational structure of the data partitioning being specific in the data partitioning implementation.