Teaching concurrency with Joyce and Linda

ABSTRACT

To overcome the difficulty of demonstrating the principles of concurrency with limited parallel computing resources, a concurrent programming language has been designed and implemented which uses the Linda parallel programming paradigm. The language executes under the UNIX operating system and is supported by an X-windows based viewer of programs undergoing concurrent execution. This paper describes the language, its compiler and execution environment and experiences gained in using the language in a third year undergraduate course over the last two years.

REFERENCES

• AKL89: Selim G. Akl, The design and analysis of parallel algorithms, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1989
• BA90: M. Ben-Ari, Principles of concurrent and distributed programming, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1990
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• CGe90: Nicholas Carriero , David Gelernter, How to write parallel programs: a first course, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990
• CGL86: Nicholas Carriero , David Gelernter , Jerrold Leichter, Distributed data structures in Linda, Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN symposium on Principles of programming languages, p.236-242, January 01, 1986, St. Petersburg Beach, Florida [doi>10.1145/512644.512666]
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
      D.1.3 Concurrent Programming
          Subjects: Parallel programming

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.0 General

General Terms:
Design, Languages