Retrofitting Programming Languages for a Parallel World by James Reinders.
From the post:
The most widely used computer programming languages today were not designed as parallel programming languages. But retrofitting existing programming languages for parallel programming is underway. We can compare and contrast retrofits by looking at four key features, five key qualities, and the various implementation approaches.
In this article, I focus on the features and qualities, leaving the furious debates over best approaches (language vs. library vs. directives, and abstract and portable vs. low-level with lots of controls) for another day.
Four key features:
- Memory model
- Synchronization
- Tasks, not threads
- Data, parallel support
Five qualities to desire:
- Composability
- Sequential reasoning
- Communication minimization
- Performance portability
- Safety
Parallel processing as the default isn’t that far in the future.
Do you see any of these issues as not being relevant for the processing of topic maps?
And unlike programming languages, topic maps by definition can operate in semantically heterogeneous environments.
How’s that for icing on the cake of parallel processing?
The time to address the issues of parallel processing of topic maps is now.
Suggestions?