Ask HN: Example of a 'non-scalar' programming language?

3 points

9 years ago

Greetings! I recently watched a talk by Sophie Wilson (of ARM fame) where she discusses the future of microprocessors. In the talk she mentions that "Scalar" programming languages are limited because the compiler cannot easily translate them into parallel machine instructions [1] among other reasons.

My first reaction was to see if I can find an example of a "non-scalar" programming language. Wikipedia has a page for the paradigm of Array Programming [2] but I'm not sure If that is what Wilson was implying. (The wiki page mentions languages like APL, which was featured recently through arcfide's parallel compiler work [3].)

My intention is to learn more about programming languages that actually fit modern CPU machine architectures. I was beginning to believe that C's machine-model was still relevant for CPU cache dynamics, but now with what Wilson says about it being limited by its "Scalar-ness" I'm beginning to doubt it again. (Maybe someone could convince me that OpenMP or OpenCL extends C's parallel potential, but what I'm really after is something that was conceived from the ground up to work beautifully atop modern CPU's or at least within a Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) .)

Many Thanks and Regards!

[1] https://youtu.be/_9mzmvhwMqw?t=27m

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Array_programming

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13797797

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