[Haskell] Implicit parallel functional programming

[Jan-Willem Maessen]

On Jan 18, 2005, at 11:36 PM, mgross at dorsai.org wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Satnam Singh wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to find out about existing work on implicit parallel 
>> functional programming. I see that the Glasgow Haskell compiler has a 
>> parallel mode which can be used with PVM and there is interesting 
>> work with pH at MIT. Does anyone know of any other work on implicitly 
>> parallelizing functional programs for fine grain parallel execution?
>>
>> The emergence of multi-core processors makes me think that we should 
>> look at implicit parallel functional programming in a new light.
>>
> At Brooklyn College, we are working on a version of Parallel Haskell 
> that
> does not require PVM. Instead, we use Internet protocols and the Mosix
> patches to Linux.

But what about Haskell for closely-coupled shared-memory 
multiprocessors?  These are the machines Satnam is talking about.  For 
a multipcore processor with shared caches, message passing is actively 
bad for performance; you *want* to share memory to prevent cache 
conflicts.  A first step would be to simply get GHC's RTS to work in 
multiple threads (harder than it looks, as the Simons have attested in 
the past).

Or someone could give me a lot of money and I'd get back on it. :-)  
Meanwhile I'll stick with building a strict language for big 
closely-coupled machines.

-Jan-Willem Maessen
Programming Languages Research
Sun Microsystems Laboratories

> Murray Gross
> Brooklyn College, CUNY
> Metis Project
>
>
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