Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!dan%@@uunet.UU.NET
From: dan%@@uunet.UU.NET (Daniel Cohen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
Subject: STRAND88
Message-ID: <9002030300.AA00916@>
Date: 3 Feb 90 03:00:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 65


uunet!wuibc3!gerald writes:

	To: dan@ssti
	Subject: What is STRAND ?

	I have been seeing the name STRAND88 going by for some time
	on the Transputer news group, but I have never seen an
	explanation of what it is.

	Could you give me a short description of STRAND...

Sounds like we're not getting our marketing done!

Strand is a parallel programming language with research roots
in the PARLOG group at Imperial College, the Concurrent Prolog group
at the Weitzman Institute, and the ICOT project. Although its' origins
are in logic programming, it's a dataflow language as much as an LP
language ( although some people say it's an OOP language! )

STRAND88 is an implementation of the Strand language produced by
Strand Software Technologies in conjunction with Ian Foster and
Steve Taylor. It's available on a number of systems - parallel
and sequential - including transputers ( mostly plug-in boards ).

Strand is good for parallel programming because of its' computational
model; a program runs by the repeated reduction of processes - when
one process is reduced others may be spawned - until the processes
are defined by built-in kernels. Processes communicate via shared
variables, which we implement using message-passing when
the processes run on different processors. The point is that the code
to achieve inter-process communications is the same, regardless of
whether the processes are running on the same processor or on
different processors ( in fact, the programmer does nothing;
both processes refer to the variable and the Strand system handles
the communication ). That makes it good for prototyping since the
process-processor allocation is not set in stone and can be changed
for experimentation.

There's a foreign function interface ( C and Fortran at the moment )
so you don't have to do everything in Strand - some use Strand just
for the top level: starting processes and handling the communication
between them, while the 'real work' is done by conventional code.

If anyone wants more information, feel free to contact me ( if you're
in N. America ) or the UK office if you're elsewhere. Ignore the
return address in the header - I have to fix sendmail.cf!

Otherwise, we'll be at NATUG 3 in Santa Clara in April.

Daniel Cohen
Strand Software Technologies Inc.
15220 NW Greenbrier Parkway, Suite 350
Beaverton, OR 97006, USA
Tel: +1 (503) 690 9830

e-mail: dan%ssti@uunet.uu.net  or  uunet!ssti!dan

UK office:
Strand Software Technologies
Greycaine Road
Watford, Herts. WD2 4JP
Tel: +44 923 247707

e-mail: STRAND88@ail.co.uk