Abstract
In functional language implementation, there is a folklore belief that there is a conflict between implementing call-by-need semantics and parallel evaluation. In this note we illustrate this by proving that reduction algorithms of a certain general and commonly used form which give call-by-need semantics offer very little parallelism.
The analysis of lazy pattern-matching which leads to the above result also suggests an efficient sequential algorithm for the evaluation of a class functional programs satisfying certain constraints, an algorithm which respects the mathematical semantics of the program considered as a term rewrite system.
The author was partially supported by SEMAGRAPH II, ESPRIT working group 6345, by a SERC Advanced Fellowship, and by SERC Grant no. GR/F 91582.
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Kennaway, R. (1995). A conflict between call-by-need computation and parallelism. In: Dershowitz, N., Lindenstrauss, N. (eds) Conditional and Typed Rewriting Systems. CTRS 1994. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 968. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60381-6_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60381-6_15
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