The data-dependency is unknown to compiler when using imperative programming language. Pure functional language with referential transparency makes it easier for parallelization during compiling time. I'm wondering whether you can always obtain similar performances with both imperative programming and functional programming. For instance, for problems, like the program 2 in assignment 2, whether it's possible to get a good answer without functional programming.
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adsmith
Of course it is. Imperative and functional programming, as paradigms, are equivalent in most meaningful ways. For example, my program achieved good performance on program 2 and was a series instructions of the form "do this thing in parallel on this array, and as a result have program instances write to this other array". I could have written that as a series of map, scan, and some other higher-order functions, and then it could be considered functional programming, but I wrote it as a series of steps with side-effects and so I would argue that it was more in the spirit of imperative programming.
It's nice to think of parallelism in terms of higher-order parallelized functions, which lends itself to functional programming -- especially since we've all taken 210 which approached it in exactly that way. But I see no reason why actually implementing those functions requires functional programming.
The data-dependency is unknown to compiler when using imperative programming language. Pure functional language with referential transparency makes it easier for parallelization during compiling time. I'm wondering whether you can always obtain similar performances with both imperative programming and functional programming. For instance, for problems, like the program 2 in assignment 2, whether it's possible to get a good answer without functional programming.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
Of course it is. Imperative and functional programming, as paradigms, are equivalent in most meaningful ways. For example, my program achieved good performance on program 2 and was a series instructions of the form "do this thing in parallel on this array, and as a result have program instances write to this other array". I could have written that as a series of map, scan, and some other higher-order functions, and then it could be considered functional programming, but I wrote it as a series of steps with side-effects and so I would argue that it was more in the spirit of imperative programming.
It's nice to think of parallelism in terms of higher-order parallelized functions, which lends itself to functional programming -- especially since we've all taken 210 which approached it in exactly that way. But I see no reason why actually implementing those functions requires functional programming.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.