Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!emory!hubcap!ssmith
From: ssmith@rhumba.mpr.ca (Shaun Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Existing Concurrent Languages and Systems
Summary: Want summary of availability of "Subject:"
Keywords: concurrent, parallel, mimd, programming language
Message-ID: <9247@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 7 Jun 90 17:18:54 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 38
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

Hi,

     I'm a graduate student attempting to get a clear idea of how to
program a MIMD machine.  What I'm trying to do is find out what
languages (research and commercial) and support systems (OS) currently
exist for programming this class of machine.

     I'm aware of a few languages, such as Strand (a commercial parallel
logic language), Occam, and CST (Concurrent Smalltalk) but I don't know
much about any of them.  Can others contribute to this list?

     I think it would be interesting to create a table of languages like
the table that existed in comp.lang.misc in the recent past.  That table
consisted of a language and its underlying central concept.  Agreement
on the underlying central concept of any particular language was
controversal of course.


| Language | Hardware Platform(s)   | Underlying Central Concept | Status
|----------|------------------------|----------------------------|------------
|Strand    |Sun network             |Logic-based                 | Commercial
|          |Transputers w/ Helios OS|(similar to a stripped down |
|          |Meiko Computing Surface | version of flat concurrent |
|          |                        | prolog)                    |
|----------|------------------------|----------------------------|------------
|CST       |Jellbean Machine        |Concurrent communicating    | Research
|          |(no shared memory)      |objects.  Distributed ob-   |
|          |                        |jects (one object on more   |
|          |                        |than one cpu)               |

If I'm wrong in what I've stated, please correct me.  Any other contributions?

   Shaun

Shaun M. Smith                  | ssmith@joplin.mpr.ca
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