An Applicative Compiler for a Parallel Machine

Abstract

A compiler for the applicative language HOPE is described. The compiler is itself written in HOPE and generates a machine independent compiler target language, suitable for execution on the parallel reduction machine ALICE. The advantages of writing a compiler in a very high level applicative language are discussed, and the use of program transformation and other techniques to turn the initial 'runnable specification' into a more efficient (if less clear) program are outlined. Extensions to the HOPE language and the compiler which can exploit the parallelism and various execution modes of ALICE are described.