Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!gatech!hubcap!James.Price.Salsman
From: James.Price.Salsman@cat.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: Announcing SR version 1.1
Keywords: SR distributed parallel language release
Message-ID: <6119@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 31 Jul 89 13:10:44 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 35
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

In article <6084@hubcap.clemson.edu> gmt@arizona.edu (Gregg Townsend) writes:

> SR (Synchronizing Resources) is designed for writing
> distributed programs.  The main language constructs are
> resources and operations.  Resources encapsulate processes
> and variables they share; operations provide the primary
> mechanism for process interaction.  SR provides a novel
> integration of the mechanisms for invoking and servicing
> operations.  Consequently, all of local and remote procedure
> call, rendezvous, message passing, dynamic process creation,
> multicast, and semaphores are supported.

Sounds good, but I have some questions:

- How well does it compile on to various types of parallel hardware?
- Why is the Multimax the only MIMD system that runs SR?
- Any plans for a port to a multiprocessor chip like the transputer
    or the i860?
- Could you compare & contrast SR with Ada's task model, Occam,
    and the BBN Butterfly's MultiScheme?
- Does it have any of Icon's string scanning and backtracking?
    [For those who don't know, Icon is from Arizona, too.]
- Could you elaborate on "An SR program runs on one or more networked
    machines of the same architecture."?
- What is meant by "synchronizing?"  To be more specific, is the term
    used in the asynch/sync sense or the synch/out-of-synch sense?
- Has the underlying paradigm been formalized as in Hoare's CSP?
- Can the denotational semantics be described in terms of temporal logic?

:James

Disclaimer:  The university and I do not think the same thoughts.
-- 

:James P. Salsman (jps@CAT.CMU.EDU)