Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!plx!evan From: evan@plx.UUCP (Evan Bigall) Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl Subject: Re: APL for Parallel Algorithms Keywords: APL, parallel processing Message-ID: <1522@plx.UUCP> Date: 8 Dec 88 17:31:48 GMT References: <3779@hubcap.UUCP> Reply-To: evan@plx.UUCP (Evan Bigall) Organization: Plexus Computers; San Jose, CA Lines: 23 In article <3779@hubcap.UUCP> kepler1!rjfrey@uunet.UU.NET (Robert J Frey) writes: >Does anyone know of anyone who is using APL to implement or describe >parallel algorithms? It would seem that APL, which tends to produce >"loopless" code, would be a natural medium for many applications. > >Anyone care to comment about the utility of a "parallel APL" implementation? I was inolved in the implementation of a parallel/vector APL compiler at IBM's Watson Labs. One of the largest problems with parallel APL is that to really get a speed up, you need a compiler and we all know how much fun compiling APL is. I left the project with the opinion that while there are a lot of ideas from apl that apply to parallel programming (explicit vector operations, large basic blocks, many "heavy" nodes) the current semantics of the language make it very difficult to access those concepts. I always find it interesting how many papers on parallel languages footnote APL without really taking anything from APL (Steele's C* comes first to my mind, but there are others). I have just moved, so my stuff is a mess, but if you are interested I think I can dig up the refrences for the project. Evan ...!sun!plx!evan I barely have the authority to speak for myself, certainly not anybody else