Delirium: an embedding coordination language

Abstract

Parallel programs consist of a group of sequentially executing sub-computations which cooperate to solve a problem. To exploit existing sequential code and available optimization tools, programmers usually choose to write these sub-computations in traditional imperative languages such as C and Fortran. A coordination language expresses data exchange and synchronization among such sub-computations. Current coordination languages support a variety of interaction models. Delirium introduces a new, more restrictive coordination model that provides the benefit of deterministic execution without requiring programmers to re-write large amounts of code. Current coordination languages are embedded; they work through the insertion of coordination primitives within a host language. Delirium is the first example of an embedding coordination language. A Delirium program is a compact representation of a framework for accomplishing a task in parallel.