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The sequential prison

Published:22 October 2011Publication History
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Abstract

We are trapped in a sequential prison. We use sequential character strings to write sequential programs to control sequential computers. No wonder concurrency remains elusive. How did we come to be here? The high cost of vacuum tube logic forced sequence upon early computer builders. Sequential character strings were the economic way to describe what sequential computers should do. Sequential programs controlled the expensive part of the machine, namely logic. The lethargic pace of logic circuits masked the cost of moving data over distance, allowing programming languages to ignore the cost of communication. Today, the time delay and energy cost of communicating over distance dominate modern computers; logic is essentially free. Why then, do programming languages continue to control logic and largely ignore communication? It will take a broad effort to escape our sequential prison, requiring changes in hardware, programming notations and the ways in which they are expressed. Most importantly, it will require recognizing that we are in sequential prison, and planning for an escape.

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  1. The sequential prison

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices
      ACM SIGPLAN Notices  Volume 46, Issue 10
      OOPSLA '11
      October 2011
      1063 pages
      ISSN:0362-1340
      EISSN:1558-1160
      DOI:10.1145/2076021
      Issue’s Table of Contents
      • cover image ACM Conferences
        OOPSLA '11: Proceedings of the 2011 ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications
        October 2011
        1104 pages
        ISBN:9781450309400
        DOI:10.1145/2048066

      Copyright © 2011 Author

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 22 October 2011

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