Re: [Caml-list] Distributed computing libraries

[Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp>]

On 06/08/2012 12:44 AM, Thomas Braibant wrote:
>> Don't hesitate, jump on it, that's really a nice technology.
>> The "minimal disruption" concept is quite interesting.
>> For example, if your List.iter is changed to a Parmap.pariter,
>> the parallelization of this portion of the code is done.
>>
>> It's quite comfortable to develop and debug in single core mode (List.iter)
>> and switch to the // version only once you're happy with
>> the sequential one.
>
> I see. However, looking at, e.g., Functory,
> http://www.lri.fr/~filliatr/functory/doc/Functory.Cores.html it seems
> that I can use it in the same fashion (Using Functory.Cores.map
> instead of List.map) and that I can debug my code using
> Functory.Sequential.map.
>
> So this does not really discriminate between the two libraries. Note,
> however, that I cannot find Parmap's API described on line (using
> ocamldoc). Right now, it seems that I have to download it, to generate
> the doc.

Roberto Di Cosmo just created a home page:
http://www.dicosmo.org/code/parmap/

The ocamldoc-generated pages are here:
http://www.dicosmo.org/code/parmap/doc/Parmap.html

Regards,
F.

> Note that Gerd's Plasma Map/Reduce has a nice and comprehensive
> documentation available, but, being more ambitious maybe, it is harder
> for a beginner to find his/her way in: the entry cost is higher.
>
> By comparison, JOcaml's manual is written in a quasi-tutorial fashion
> ( http://jocaml.inria.fr/doc/index.html ) which makes it more easy to
> start hacking stuff, even if the scope is a bit different.
>
> And what about CamlP3l? What is its status? Is it superseded by Parmap
> (the lists of authors of the two softwares have a non-empty
> intersection)?
>
> Maybe that I should add some criteria to Oliver's list:
> - active / inactive
> - used in the wild
> - documentation (API, manual)
> - examples / tutorials
>
> With best regards,
> Thomas
>