Defining, analyzing, and transforming program constructs

We have developed a framework for analyzing the behavior and relations of various sequential and parallel control constructs, which we can nest in a very general way. A simple yet powerful scheme defines the order of data accesses in a program, and provides a well-founded semantic structure for nested constructs. When defining parallel languages or extensions to current languages, designers can use this framework to define how each new feature interacts with the language´s other features. Because our approach is based on well-known dependence analysis techniques, it is practical for compiler implementation. It determines which behavior the compiler and system must preserve while allowing aggressive automatic optimization. Instead of being confined to a single programming paradigm, programmers can use the most appropriate constructs for the application, and the compiler can transform and optimize the program for different parallel or sequential architectures.<>