A PROPOSAL FOR BUILDING A LINDA COMPILER AND COMMUNICATION KERNEL FOR PARALLEL PROGRAMMING ON HYPERCUBE-CONNECTED MULTICOMPUTERS

HYPERCUBE-CONNECTED MULTICOMPUTERS LIKE THE INTEL IPSC ARE OF GROWING INTEREST TO THE PARALLEL PROGRAMMING COMMUNITY. THEY OFFER ADVANTAGES IN SCALABILITY AND IN COST OVER COMPETING MULTI-COMPUTER ARCHITECTURES. WE PROPOSE TO BUILDAN IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PARALLEL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE LINDAON THE IPSC; THE FINISHED SYSTEM SHOULD BE PORTABLE TO OTHER HYPERCUBE MACHINES. A LINDA SYSTEM CONSISTS OF A COMPILER AND A RUNTIME KERNEL; THE KERNEL IS THE RUNTIME SUPPORT SYSTEM THAT IMPLEMENTS PROCESS MANAGEMENT AND INTER-PROCESS COMMUNICATION. THE KERNEL IS INDEPENDENT OF THE COMPILER LANGUAGE. WE INTEND TO DEVELOP A LINDA KERNEL,AND FORTRAN-LINDA AND C-LINDA COMPILERS (IMPLEMENTED AS FORTRAN AND C PREPROCESSORS) FOR THE IPSC. MANY PARALLEL LANGUAGES HAVE BEEN PROPOSED; MOST RESTRICT PROGRAMMERS TO THE NETWORK MODEL. LINDA DIFFERS FROM THESE LANGUAGES INSUPPORTING BOTH THE NETWORK MODEL AND THE REPLICATED-WORKER MODEL OF PARALLEL PROGRAMMING.