From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFF24BC8E for ; Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:38:33 +0200 (CEST) Received: from smtp3.wanadoo.fr (smtp3.wanadoo.fr [193.252.22.28]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j5NBcXIR018353 for ; Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:38:33 +0200 Received: from me-wanadoo.net (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by mwinf0308.wanadoo.fr (SMTP Server) with ESMTP id 733F52000046 for ; Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:38:33 +0200 (CEST) Received: from nono (ARouen-106-1-12-182.w80-11.abo.wanadoo.fr [80.11.244.182]) by mwinf0308.wanadoo.fr (SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1EBBB2000040 for ; Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:38:33 +0200 (CEST) X-ME-UUID: 20050623113833126.1EBBB2000040@mwinf0308.wanadoo.fr Message-ID: <003701c577e8$82512080$0100a8c0@mshome.net> From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fr=E9d=E9ric_Gava?= To: Subject: Fw: [Caml-list] How INRIA people envision OCaml's parallel future? Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:41:34 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 42BA9F39.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; gava:01 gava:01 caml-list:01 ocaml's:01 caml-list:01 ocaml's:01 lablgtk:01 parallelism:01 parallelism:01 haskell:01 haskell:01 herrmann:01 metaocaml:01 ocamlmpi:01 bsmllib:01 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Level: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frédéric Gava" To: "David MENTRE" Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 11:49 AM Subject: Re: [Caml-list] How INRIA people envision OCaml's parallel future? > Hello, > > >Good question that I did not considered when asking my own question. > Thanks ;-) > > >Right now, I'm writing a user program (with Lablgtk2 user interface) > >and a server program (network, file and databases I/O, lot of in > >memory data structures, few computation intensive parts, mostly > >algorithmic issues). On the user side, I see no real need of > >parallelism, except if it can improve responsiveness (e.g. user > >graphical front-end and back-end that interact with the server on the > >network). On the server side, it is different. If I have a dual core > >machine (and *I'm going to have* a 2- or 4-core machine), I would like > >my server to reply as fast as possible to clients, which implies that > >some tasks must be done in the background, with all the implied > >synchronization issues. > > For tasks parallelism, you can try pGhc or Eden (but it is parallel > extention of Haskell) or mobile haskell > > Herrmann ( http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~hermann ) has also developp a > tasks parallel extention of MetaOCaml using > OCamlMPI. > > > >As you see, my programmer profile is quite different from the expected > >usage of BSMLlib (if I have understood BSMLlib description correctly): > >no data parallel programming, rather control parallel programming. > > yes. Ok. You are in the case of tasks parallelism. > > You an try an interface between ocaml and OpenMM but without a parallel GC, > it seems (peraps ?) unsafe. > > > >I'm not interested in THE parallel paradigm that will solve all > >parallel programming issues. > ok > > >After 50 years of research, no consensus > >have emerged yet. > Agree > > > >That's said, it does not mean that OCaml should not provide tools to > >improve the current state of affair. It is already doing that with > >type inference, GC or sum types. > > >Programming parallel code with Posix > >mutexes and threads is a nightmare. > Agree, one of our parallel libraries (mspmllib) used massively those > features and it is too hard to debug... > > >I have to say that I had a very > >pleasant experiment with OCaml typed channels (aka Concurrent ML > >channels). I'm just wondering if INRIA people consider that unknown > >(to a wide public) constructs could be offered to ease concurrent > >programming. And knowing that current ocaml cannot handle real > >concurrent threads is a real concern. > ok > > Frédéric Gava: > > ps: are you a researcher or an ingeneer ? >