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Speculative computation in multilisp

  • Part I Parallel Lisp Languages and Programming Models
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Parallel Lisp: Languages and Systems (PSC 1989)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 441))

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Abstract

We demonstrate by experiments that performing computations in parallel before their results are known to be required can yield performance improvements over conventional approaches to parallel computing. We call such eager computation of expressions speculative computation, as opposed to conventional mandatory computation that is used in almost all contemporary parallel programming languages and systems. The two major requirements for speculative computation are: 1) a means to control computation to favor the most promising computations and 2) a means to abort computation and reclaim computation resources.

We discuss these requirements in the parallel symbolic language Multilisp and present a sponsor model for speculative computation in Multilisp which handles control and reclamation of computation in a single, elegant framework. We describe an implementation of this sponsor model and present performance results for several applications of speculative computation. The results demonstrate that our support for speculative computation adds expressive and computational power to Multilisp, with observed performance improvement as great as 26 times over conventional approaches to parallel computation.

This research was performed as part of the author's doctoral work at the M.I.T. Laboratory for Computer Science.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Digital Equipment Corporation, Cambridge Research Lab, UK

    Randy B. Osborne

  2. One Kendall Square, Bldg. 700, 02139, Cambridge, MA

    Randy B. Osborne

Authors
  1. Randy B. Osborne
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Editor information

Takayasu Ito Robert H. Halstead Jr.

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Osborne, R.B. (1990). Speculative computation in multilisp. In: Ito, T., Halstead, R.H. (eds) Parallel Lisp: Languages and Systems. PSC 1989. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 441. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0024152

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0024152

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-52782-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47143-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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