Distributed functional programming in Scheme

In this thesis, we present a framework for writing distributed computer programs in Scheme using simple "future" semantics. This allows a Scheme program originally written for execution on a single computer to be run in a distributed manner on a cluster of computers with very little modification to the program. The structure of the computation can be extremely general and need not be specified in advance. In order to provide this programming environment, we implemented a system of job execution servers which transparently execute arbitrary Scheme code written in a functional or mostly functional style. The use of a functional, side effect free style of programming simplifies the challenges of data consistency. A number of demonstrations of the system are presented, including a distributed SAT solver. The performance of the system is shown to increase roughly linearly with the number of servers employed.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Schwendner, Alex (Alex R.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Saman Amarasinghe.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61515

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/61515