A Deterministic Multi-Way Rendezvous Library for Haskell

Articles:

Title:: A Deterministic Multi-Way Rendezvous Library for Haskell
Author(s):: Vasudevan, Nalini
Singh, Satnam
Edwards, Stephen A.
Date:: 2008
Type:: Articles
Department:: Computer Science
Permanent URL:: http://hdl.handle.net/10022/AC:P:11201
Book/Journal Title:: 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel & Distributed Processing: Miami, FL, 14-18 April 2008
Publisher:: IEEE
Publisher Location:: Piscataway, N.J.
Abstract:: The advent of multicore processors requires mainstream concurrent programming languages with high level concurrency constructs and effective debugging techniques. Unfortunately, many concurrent programming languages are non-deterministic and allow data races. We present a deterministic concurrent communication library for an existing multi-threaded language. We implemented the SHIM communication model in the Haskell functional language, which supports asynchronous communication and transactional memory. The SHIM model uses multi-way rendezvous to guarantee determinism. We describe two implementations of the model in Haskell, demonstrating the ease of writing such a library. We illustrate our library with examples and experimentally compare two implementations. We also compare our new model with equivalent sequential programs and parallel versions using Haskell's existing concurrency mechanisms.
Subject(s):: Computer science