research-article

Dynamic enforcement of determinism in a parallel scripting language

Authors:

Michael L. ScottAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 49, Issue 6

Pages 519 - 529

https://doi.org/10.1145/2666356.2594300

Published: 09 June 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Determinism is an appealing property for parallel programs, as it simplifies understanding, reasoning and debugging. It is particularly appealing in dynamic (scripting) languages, where ease of programming is a dominant design goal. Some existing parallel languages use the type system to enforce determinism statically, but this is not generally practical for dynamic languages. In this paper, we describe how determinism can be obtained---and dynamically enforced/verified---for appropriate extensions to a parallel scripting language. Specifically, we introduce the constructs of Deterministic Parallel Ruby (DPR), together with a run-time system (Tardis) that verifies properties required for determinism, including correct usage of reductions and commutative operators, and the mutual independence (data-race freedom) of concurrent tasks. Experimental results confirm that DPR can provide scalable performance on multicore machines and that the overhead of Tardis is low enough for practical testing. In particular, Tardis significantly outperforms alternative data-race detectors with comparable functionality. We conclude with a discussion of future directions in the dynamic enforcement of determinism.

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Cited By

Nakade RMercer EAldous PStorey KOgles BHooker JPowell SMcCarthy J(2019)Model-checking task-parallel programs for data-raceInnovations in Systems and Software Engineering10.1007/s11334-019-00343-5Online publication date: 18-May-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-019-00343-5
Storey KPowell JOgles BHooker JAldous PMercer E(2019)Optimized Sound and Complete Data Race Detection in Structured Parallel ProgramsLanguages and Compilers for Parallel Computing10.1007/978-3-030-34627-0_8(94-111)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34627-0_8
Oh TBeard SJohnson NPopovych SAugust D(2017)A Generalized Framework for Automatic Scripting Language Parallelization2017 26th International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT)10.1109/PACT.2017.28(356-369)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/PACT.2017.28
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Index Terms

Dynamic enforcement of determinism in a parallel scripting language
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Parallel computing methodologies
    1. Parallel programming languages
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types
        Concurrent programming languages
        Distributed programming languages
        Parallel programming languages

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 49, Issue 6

PLDI '14

June 2014

598 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/2666356

Editor:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Issue’s Table of Contents

PLDI '14: Proceedings of the 35th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation
June 2014
619 pages
ISBN:9781450327848
DOI:10.1145/2594291
General Chair:
Michael O'Boyle
University of Edinburgh
,
Program Chair:
Keshav Pingali
University of Texas, Austin

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 09 June 2014

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 49, Issue 6

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Cited By

Nakade RMercer EAldous PStorey KOgles BHooker JPowell SMcCarthy J(2019)Model-checking task-parallel programs for data-raceInnovations in Systems and Software Engineering10.1007/s11334-019-00343-5Online publication date: 18-May-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-019-00343-5
Storey KPowell JOgles BHooker JAldous PMercer E(2019)Optimized Sound and Complete Data Race Detection in Structured Parallel ProgramsLanguages and Compilers for Parallel Computing10.1007/978-3-030-34627-0_8(94-111)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34627-0_8
Oh TBeard SJohnson NPopovych SAugust D(2017)A Generalized Framework for Automatic Scripting Language Parallelization2017 26th International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT)10.1109/PACT.2017.28(356-369)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/PACT.2017.28
Abbaspour Asadollah SSundmark DEldh SHansson HAfzal W(2017)10 Years of research on debugging concurrent and multicore softwareSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-015-9301-725:1(49-82)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-015-9301-7
Yoga ANagarakatte SGupta AZimmermann TCleland-Huang JSu Z(2016)Parallel data race detection for task parallel programs with locksProceedings of the 2016 24th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/2950290.2950329(833-845)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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Utterback RAgrawal KFineman JLee IScheideler CGilbert S(2016)Provably Good and Practically Efficient Parallel Race Detection for Fork-Join ProgramsProceedings of the 28th ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures10.1145/2935764.2935801(83-94)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2016
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Yoga ANagarakatte SFranke BWu YRastello F(2016)Atomicity violation checker for task parallel programsProceedings of the 2016 International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization10.1145/2854038.2854063(239-249)Online publication date: 29-Feb-2016
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Mills PJeffery C(2016)Embedding Concurrent Generators2016 IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium Workshops (IPDPSW)10.1109/IPDPSW.2016.8(366-375)Online publication date: May-2016
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Melo SSouza SSilva RSouza PVos TEldh SPrasetya W(2015)Concurrent software testing in practice: a catalog of toolsProceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Automating Test Case Design, Selection and Evaluation10.1145/2804322.2804328(31-40)Online publication date: 30-Aug-2015
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Singer KXu YLee IHollingsworth JKeidar I(2019)Proactive work stealing for futuresProceedings of the 24th Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming10.1145/3293883.3295735(257-271)Online publication date: 16-Feb-2019
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