A continuation-based Distributed Lisp System: Design Criteria and Implementation Strategy

In this paper we describe an approach to coping with parallelism in symbolic applications. Our purpose is to build a parallel symbolic system suited to homogenous and heterogenous Distributed Memory Parallel Systems. In particular we describe the design criteria and the implementation strategy for a Distributed Lisp System (DLISP) that relies on a client/server model and uses a functional level mechanism to synchronize and to control the processes. The intraprocess and interprocess management are obtained using the notion of continuation of a computation for process context switching and resuming. In this way this system does not rely on any control feature outside the LISP language. The DLISP system is structured in three main layers. The hardware heterogeneity is encapsulated using the Parallel Virtual Machine software package to implement the actual communication among processes