Super Monaco: Its portable and efficient parallel runtime system

Abstract

“Super Monaco” is the successor to Monaco, a shared-memory multiprocessor implementation of a flat concurrent logic programming language. While the system retains, by-and-large, the older Monaco compiler and intermediate abstract machine, the intermediate code translator and the runtime system have been completely replaced, incorporating a number of new features intended to improve robustness, flexibility, maintainability, and performance. There are currently two native-code backends for 80×86-based and MIPS-based multiprocessors. The runtime system, written in C, improves upon its predecessor with better memory utilization and garbage collection, and includes new features such as an efficient termination scheme and a novel variable binding and hooking mechanism. The result of this organization is a portable system which is robust, extensible, and has performance competitive with C-based systems. This paper describes the design choices made in building the system and the interfaces between the components.Keywordslogic programmingparallelismnative coderuntime systems