multithreading vs multi-machines?

[hwright]

I'm an mechanical engineering student so I'm not extremely well informed when it comes to multithreading but I understand it can be a difficult process. I have however, read a few blogs that seem to indicate that programming across multiple machines is easier than on multiple cores. Is this true? Wouldn't the simple geographic overheads associated with multiple machine programming (distance, network problems, etc) cause huge problems?

Thanks for the info guys