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