Very high level concurrent programming

Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1987 · IEEE Trans. Software Eng.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.1987.233791· OSTI ID:5703409

Shi, Y; Prywes, N; Szymanski, B; Pnueli, A

The MODEL approach reported in this paper allows human designers to have a nonprocedural implementation-independent view of a concurrent system. The designers specify the problem to be solved through representing problem concepts by variables and composing equations which define the variables. They partition the overall problem into modules, which are candidates for being computed concurrently. Each module consists of a subset of the equations. Excluded are such dynamic implementation concepts as sequences of program events, synchronization, exchanges of messages and relative timing. The translation from the specification into a respective computation by an object computer architecture is performed by the language processors. The methodology supports independence in specifying and testing individual modules. The language processors detect inconsistency and incompleteness errors in both the individual modules and in the global system. The automatic implementation of a specified system is performed by the MODEL system on two levels. On the global level, the Configurator accepts as input a graph of the network of subsystems, modules, and files and their interconnections. It verifies the validity of interfaces and implements the network by generating command language programs that set up communications, optimize concurrency of modules and oversee execution of the overall system. On the local level, the Compiler accepts as input an individual module specification. It performs checking of completeness and consistency of variables and equations and generates an optimized sequential program in a high level language. The overall methodology is described through the dining philosophers which represents resource allocation, widely used in operating systems and real-time systems. Brief description of the operation of the Configurator and the Compiler are also given.

• Research Organization: Dept. of Computer and Information Science, Temple Univ., Philadelphia, PA 19122
• OSTI ID: 5703409
• Journal Information: IEEE Trans. Software Eng.; (United States), Vol. SE-13:9
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
M CODES
SUPERCOMPUTERS
PARALLEL PROCESSING
AUTOMATION
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTER NETWORKS
DIGITAL SYSTEMS
EXECUTIVE CODES
OPERATION
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
REAL TIME SYSTEMS
COMPUTER CODES
COMPUTERS
DIGITAL COMPUTERS
PROGRAMMING
990210* - Supercomputers- (1987-1989)