Defining, analyzing, and transforming program constructs

We have developed a framework for analyzing the behavior and relations of various sequential and parallel control constructs, which we can nest in a very general way. A simple yet powerful scheme defines the order of data accesses in a program, and provides a well-founded semantic structure for nested constructs. When defining parallel languages or extensions to current languages, designers can use this framework to define how each new feature interacts with the language's other features. Because our approach is based on well-known dependence analysis techniques, it is practical for compiler implementation. It determines which behavior the compiler and system must preserve while allowing aggressive automatic optimization. Instead of being confined to a single programming paradigm, programmers can use the most appropriate constructs for the application, and the compiler can transform and optimize the program for different parallel or sequential architectures.<>