X10 (programming language): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:03, 3 October 2014

Revision as of 18:04, 3 October 2014

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X10 is designed specifically for [[parallel computing]] using the [[partitioned global address space]] (PGAS) model.

A computation is divided among a set of ''places'', each of which holds some data and hosts one or more ''activities'' that operate on those data. It has a constrained type system for object-oriented programming, a form of [[dependent types]]. Other features include user-defined primitive ''struct'' types; globally distributed ''arrays'', and structured and unstructured parallelism.<ref>Saraswat, Vijay; Bloom, Bard; Peshansky, Igor; Tardieu, Olivier; Grove, David, [http://x10.sourceforge.net/documentation/languagespec/x10-latest.pdf "X10 Language Specification Version 2.25"], JanuaryOctober 313, 20122014</ref>

X10 uses the concept of parent and child relationships for activities to prevent the lock stalemate that can occur when two or more processes wait for each other to finish before they can complete. An activity may spawn one or more child activities, which may themselves have children. Children cannot wait for a parent to finish, but a parent can wait for a child using the ''finish'' command.<ref>Biever, C. "Computer revolution poses problems for programmers", New Scientist (Vol 193, Number 2594)</ref>