A PARALLEL LISP SYSTEM

Abstract

The exploitation of parallelism in computing is a constant area of research. Lisp, being a popular sequential programming language, is an excellent subject of parallelisation. Two approaches are possible : automatically restructuring existing Lisp programs for parallel execution or extending Lisp with parallel constructs. The former is possible because Lisp is inherently rich in parallelism. However, it do not allow for the expression of parallel algorithms. BaLinda Lisp is an attempt with the latter approach. For task communication and cooperation, the Linda model of tuple space is used. For task creation, a scaled-down version of the Multilisp future construct is used together with those Lisp constructs that already possess semantics conducive to parallel execution. The result is a parallel Lisp dialect that allows not only for mandatory but also speculative parallelism. This thesis describes the design of BaLinda Lisp and the implementation of a protoype interpreter.