SISAL
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SISAL (Streams and Iteration in a Single Assignment Language) is a general-purpose single assignment functional programming language with strict semantics, automatic parallelisation and efficient array handling. SISAL outputs a dataflow graph in Intermediary Form 1 (IF1). It was derived from VAL, adds recursion and finite streams. It has a Pascal-like syntax and was designed to be a common high-level language for numerical programs on a variety of multiprocessors.
SISAL was defined in 1983 by James McGraw et al, University of Manchester, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Colorado State University and DEC. It was revised in 1985, and the first compiled implementation was created in 1986. Its performance is superior to C and competitive with Fortran, combined with efficient and automatic parallelisation.
Implementations exist for Cray X-MP, Cray Y-MP, Cray-2, Sequent Computer Systems, Encore Alliant, dataflow architectures, transputers and systolic arrays.
- This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.