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A definition of and linguistic support for partial quiescence
Author(s) -
Man Billy YanKit,
Chan Hiu Ning Angela,
Gallagher Andrew J.,
Goundan Appu S.,
Keen Aaron W.,
Olsson Ronald A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
concurrency and computation: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.309
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1532-0634
pISSN - 1532-0626
DOI - 10.1002/cpe.1248
Subject(s) - synchronization (alternating current) , computation , computer science , code (set theory) , feature (linguistics) , programming language , distributed computing , computer network , linguistics , channel (broadcasting) , set (abstract data type) , philosophy
The global quiescence (GQ) of a distributed computation (or distributed termination detection) is an important problem. Some concurrent programming languages and systems provide GQ detection as a built‐in feature so that programmers do not need to write special synchronization code to detect quiescence. This paper introduces partial quiescence (PQ), which generalizes quiescence detection to a specified part of a distributed computation. PQ is useful, for example, when two independent concurrent computations that both rely on GQ need to be combined into a single program. The paper describes how we have designed and implemented a PQ mechanism within an experimental version of the JR concurrent programming language, and have gained experience with several representative applications. Our early results are promising qualitatively and quantitatively. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.