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Efficient distributed memory implementation of a data parallel functional language

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Book cover PARLE'94 Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe (PARLE 1994)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 817))

Abstract

We discuss why existing implementations of functional languages on MIMD-machines with distributed memory are slow. This is done by comparing the behavior of a functional program with a corresponding Occam program. The main reason is that functional languages give insufficient means to control parallelism and communication. Our approach is to support data parallelism by providing a set of primitives on arrays which allow the user to control the parallelism and communication on a high level, disabling problems like deadlocks. Only one unique version of an array may be referenced at a time. This restriction allows arrays to be updated in place and enables the user to control the space requirements of the program. The uniqueness of arrays is checked by the compiler. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of our data parallel functional language.

This author has been supported by Graduiertenkolleg Informatik und Technik.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Informatik II, RWTH Aachen, D-52056, Aachen, Germany

    Herbert Kuchen & Holger Stoltze

  2. Dep. of Computer Science, University of Nijmegen, 6525, ED Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Rinus Plasmeijer

Authors
  1. Herbert Kuchen
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  2. Rinus Plasmeijer
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  3. Holger Stoltze
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Editor information

Costas Halatsis Dimitrios Maritsas George Philokyprou Sergios Theodoridis

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© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kuchen, H., Plasmeijer, R., Stoltze, H. (1994). Efficient distributed memory implementation of a data parallel functional language. In: Halatsis, C., Maritsas, D., Philokyprou, G., Theodoridis, S. (eds) PARLE'94 Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe. PARLE 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 817. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58184-7_123

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58184-7_123

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-58184-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48477-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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