While many parallel programming languages exist, they rarely address programming
languages from the issue of communication (implying expressability,
and readability). A new language called Explicit Parallel Programming (EPP),
attempts to provide this quality by separating the responsibility for the execution
of run time actions from the responsibility for deciding the order in which they
occur. The ordering of a parallel algorithm is specified in the new EPP language;
run time actions are written in FORTRAN and embedded in the EPP code, from
which they are later extracted and given to a FORTRAN compiler for compilation.
The separation of order and run time actions is taken to its logical extreme in an
attempt to evaluate its benefits and costs in the parallel environment.
As part of the evaluation, a compiler and executive were implemented on a
Sequent Symmetry 881 shared memory multiprocessor computer. The design decisions
and difficulties in implementation are discussed at some length, since certain
problems are unique to this approach. In the final evaluation, the EPP project asserts
that structured, parallel programming languages require a significant amount
of interaction with an over-seeing task in order to provide some basic, desirable
functions. It also asserts that the description of run time actions (e.g., expression
syntax) need not change from the uniprocessor environment to the multiprocessor
environment.
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