The evaluation of functional programs on a hierarchical multicomputer
Ponnuswamy Sadayappan · 1983
Functional languages are a promising alternative to imperative languages as a medium for programming parallel computers. This is especially so in the context of a hierarchically structured computer, since the evaluation of a functional program generates logical task trees. This research is concerned with issues pertaining to the implementation of a functional language on a tree structured computer such as the Stony Brook Hierarchical Multicomputer. The primary issue addressed is that of task distribution: a compile time classification scheme and two heuristic runtime distribution schemes are proposed; experimental measurements with some divide-and-conquer problems on a seven processor binary tree are presented. Also addressed is the issue garbage collection of linked structures: a reference count based scheme is devised that handles circular lists in the context of a purely functional language.