p4-Linda: a portable implementation of Linda

Abstract

Facilities such as interprocess communication and protection of shared resources have been added to operating systems to support multiprogramming and have since been adapted to exploit explicit multiprocessing within the scope of two models: the shared-memory model and the distributed (message-passing) model. When multiprocessors (or networks of heterogeneous processors) are used for explicit parallelism, the difference between these models is exposed to the programmer. The p4 tool set was originally developed to buffer the programmer from synchronization issues while offering an added advantage in portability, however two models are often still needed to develop parallel algorithms. The authors provide two implementations of Linda in an attempt to support a single high-level programming model on top of the existing paradigms in order to provide a consistent semantics regardless of the underlying model. Linda's fundamental properties associated with generative communication eliminate the distinction between shared and distributed memory.<>