1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving, by a computing system configured to provide a distributed program execution service having a plurality of computing nodes, information that indicates a program to be executed in a distributed parallel manner, the received information including an indication that the program is one of multiple predefined types of programs; determining, by the configured computing system, recommended execution configuration parameters to use for executing the indicated program based at least in part on the indicated one predefined type of program; providing, by the configured computing system, information to a user regarding the recommended execution configuration parameters; responsive to the providing, receiving from the user, by the configured computing system, further information that indicates selected execution configuration parameters to use for the executing of the indicated program, the selected execution configuration parameters including an indicated quantity of the plurality of computing nodes to use for the executing and a confirmation to use at least one of the determined recommended execution configuration parameters; selecting, by the configured computing system, multiple of the plurality of computing nodes to use in executing the indicated program in the distributed parallel manner, the selected multiple computing nodes being of the indicated quantity; configuring, by the configured computing system, the selected multiple computing nodes in accordance with the selected execution configuration parameters; and beginning execution of the indicated program in the distributed parallel manner on the configured multiple computing nodes, the beginning of the execution including initiating multiple distinct execution jobs for the indicated program, each of at least some of the distinct execution jobs using a subset of input data specified by the user.