Orca: a language for parallel programming of distributed systems

Author

Bal, Henri E. ; Kaashoek, M. Frans ; Tanenbaum, Andrew S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Math. & Comput. Sci., Vrije Univ., Amsterdam, Netherlands

Volume

18

Issue

3

fYear

1992

fDate

3/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

190

Lastpage

205

Abstract

A detailed description is given of the Orca language design and the design choices are discussed. Orca is intended for applications programmers rather than systems programmers. This is reflected in its design goals to provide a simple, easy-to-use language that is type-secure and provides clean semantics. Three example parallel applications in Orca, one of which is described in detail, are discussed. One of the existing implementations, which is based on reliable broadcasting, is described. Performance measurements of this system are given for three parallel applications. The measurements show that significant speedups can be obtained for all three applications. The authors compare Orca with several related languages and systems

Keywords

parallel languages; parallel programming; Orca; Orca language design; applications programmers; clean semantics; design choices; distributed systems; easy-to-use language; parallel applications; parallel programming; reliable broadcasting; type-secure; Application software; Broadcasting; Costs; Local area networks; Message passing; Parallel programming; Programming profession; Sun; Velocity measurement; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.126768

Filename

126768