Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!emory!hubcap!fpst
From: sstl!will@uunet.UU.NET (William Pickles)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: "Asynchronous" way of thinking
Keywords: Asynchronous Algorithms
Message-ID: <1991May24.180140.10339@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 24 May 91 09:27:39 GMT
References: <1991May23.120018.17449@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu (Steve Stevenson)
Organization: Strand Software Technologies Limited
Lines: 40
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu
Apparently-To: uunet!comp-parallel

androula@ecn.purdue.edu (Ioannis Androulakis) writes:

>Is it possible to make use of the concept of asynchronicity
>and develop a NEW WAY OF THINKING,

When I first started writing programs in FCP and Strand - I had to remember
the local invocation of Murphy's Law -- Any given event will happen
at the least appropriate moment. Any set of events will occur in the
sequence you least expect.

>a new way of approaching the problems,
>that will lead us to completely
>new algorithms that will make full use of the power of the
>asynchronous mode of operation and that would not be simple
>asynchronous implementations of the existing sequential 
>algorithms?

I found that the freely parallel semantics of these languages especially 
Strand ( the eager head matching of FCP leading to a defensive approach
to programming) a very liberating process once I accommodated the above
Law.

>I feel like the independent operation of many processors
>allows several different views of the problem,
>from independent angles.
>Would it be possible to actually make use of this new
>information that does not exist in sequential algorithms?

 I was working mainly in program analysis tools and discovered the ability to
 write tools which co-operated in the filling in of slots as the program
 text being analysed worked its way down the pipeline.

William Pickles


-- 
=========================== MODERATOR ==============================
Steve Stevenson                            {steve,fpst}@hubcap.clemson.edu
Department of Computer Science,            comp.parallel
Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1906 (803)656-5880.mabell