Re: Sisal?

U-E59264-Osman Buyukisik <buyukisik_o_f@ae.ge.com>
Mon, 19 Sep 1994 12:27:46 GMT

          From comp.compilers

Related articles
Sisal? wchang@genome.lbl.gov (1994-09-14)
Re: Sisal? preston@tera.com (1994-09-18)
Re: Sisal? buyukisik_o_f@ae.ge.com (U-E59264-Osman Buyukisik) (1994-09-19)
Re: Sisal? miller@diego.llnl.gov (1994-09-19)
Re: Sisal? bernecky@eecg.toronto.edu (Robert Bernecky) (1994-09-19)
Re: Sisal? bernecky@eecg.toronto.edu (Robert Bernecky) (1994-09-21)
Re: Sisal? bernecky@eecg.toronto.edu (Robert Bernecky) (1994-09-23)
| List of all articles for this month |

Newsgroups: comp.compilers,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.functional
From: U-E59264-Osman Buyukisik <buyukisik_o_f@ae.ge.com>
Keywords: functional
Organization: Compilers Central
References: 94-09-038
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 12:27:46 GMT

        >> Where might I find discussions/critiques/rebuttals regarding
        >> Sisal? Is this dataflow/single-assignment language
        >> "functional", and how does it manage to beat Fortran?


It only beats FORTRAN on multi-processor parallel machines. It is first
order, strict, and mono-morphic, however still a functional language. Most
functional languages are easier to put into a parallel form than FORTRAN.
Also as Preston said, the global optimization is simpler for FLs. Sisal
even beats "c" on my HP710 workstation. I tried the "pseudo-knot"
benchmark (numerical) and Sisal was 30-40% faster even though I was using
the same "gcc" compiler! The other parallel (already) functional language
that was in the same benchmark suite was Concurrent-Clean. This one works
with native code so it is available only on a few platforms (linux,
macintosh, suns). It is very fast lazy, Milner typed, modern I/O. Sisal is
going to be upgraded to version 2.0 (soon?). This new version will be
polymorphic, higher order functions,.. There is a paper describing the new
version at /pub/sisal::sisal.llnl.gov as well as examples, current
implementations. There is even a paper "Is FORTRAN dead?" ! The examples
are large programs (one for Weather simulation) originally written in
Fortran.


Osman


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