Exploiting parallelism by customizing evaluation

NiMo is a totally graphic language from the family of Higher Order Typed languages with a strong Data flow inspiration. The interpreter is a specialized graph transformation system, and therefore the language operational semantics is given in terms of graph transformations. In NiMo parallelization is implicit and the evaluation policy is customizable following a process-centered approach. Here we explore some of the methodological possibilities that it opens. Some classical examples illustrate how combining modes greatly increases processor usage, decreases channel population, and achieves subnet synchronization in a very easy and intuitive way. We also present a stream programming technique and a real case application for generative and multistage-programming.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

NiMoToons: a totally graphic workbench for program tuning and experimentation

NiMo (Nets In Motion) is a Graphic-Functional-Data Flow language designed to visualize algorithms and their execution in an understandable way. Programs are process networks that evolve showing the full state at each execution step. Processes are polymorphic, higher order and have multiple outputs. The language has a set of primitive processes well suited for stream programming and supports open programs and interactive debugging. The new version of the environment NiMo Toons includes: an also graphic and incremental type inference system, multiple output processes as higher order parameters, symbolic execution, five evaluation modes that can be globally or locally set for each process and dynamically changed, and facilities to measure the used resources (parallelism level, number of steps, number of processes, etc.)Postprint (author’s final draft