Advanced Languages for Scientific Computation Environments

该项目的目标是证明一种用于科学和工程计算的基础广泛的语言的可行性。这样的语言应该同样适用于开发生产科学代码(现在通常用FORTRAN或C编写)，以及作为交互式科学计算环境的脚本语言(如MATHEMICA或MatLab)。这种广度将允许从原型和小规模实验到完整的生产代码的干净过渡，从而极大地简化代码的开发，并将更好地支持生产代码的发展。作为一种基础广泛的语言，它应该同时支持数值计算和符号计算，应该包括并行编程的构造，并且应该包括数学等系统中的高级语言功能(例如，模式匹配、高阶函数和自动内存管理)。该项目包括演示在保持良好的代码效率的同时支持这些功能是可能的。因此，该项目包括编译器技术、语言设计、开发科学代码以及使用编译器和语言对代码进行实验的工作。该项目使用带有来自NESL的并行构造的ML扩展作为试验床。

The goal of the project is to demonstrate the feasibility of a broad-based language for scientific and engineering computation. Such a language should serve equally well for developing production scientific code (which is now typically written in FORTRAN or C) and as the scripting language for interactive scientific computing environments (such as Mathematica or Matlab). This breadth would greatly simplify the development of code by allowing a clean transition from prototyping and small- scale experiments to full production code, and would better support the evolution of production code. As a broad-based language it should support both numerical and symbolic computation, should include constructs r parallel programming, and should include the high-level language features found in systems such as Mathematica (e.g. pattern matching, higher-order functions, and automatic memory management). The project involves demonstrating that it is possible to support these features while maintaining good code efficiency. As such, the project includes work on compiler techniques, on language design, on the development of scientific codes, and experimentation on the codes using the compiler and language. The project is using ML extended with the parallel constructs from NESL as a testbed.