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Monday, May 7, 2012

NERWous C

Welcome

NERWous C is an embodiment of the NERW Concurrency Model using the C language as the base language. NERWous stands for "NERW on utopian systems" since NERWous C currently exists only as a thought exercise.

The purpose of NERWous C is to explore a programming syntax that exposes the capabilities of the NERW Concurrency Model. It answers the question -- how to "easily" write a program based on this reference model. Writing a concurrent program is hard, making it easy is many times harder.

There is an abundance of ways to write a concurrent program. Each concurrent language or extension has its own syntax; you would need more than your fingers and toes to count them. Let NERWous C add another one, which is different from the others. NERWous C's approach is not object oriented like many contemporary concurrent languages; instead, it is procedural and mimics the HyperText Markup Language (HTML):
  1. It uses angle brackets (< and >) to encapsulate NERW-related facilities, preserving as much as possible the existing logic of a program. A simple serial C program could be made concurrent by sprinkling here and there various angle-bracketed NERWous C constructs.
     
  2. It offers attributes in most angle-bracketed NERWous C constructs. Many of these attributes are supported in a relaxed manner, like in the HTML language. If the underlying CHAOS runtime supports them, they will be executed in the optimal manner that the programmer intends; otherwise, their default behavior will allow the program to continue in a strapped and stripped state.
In this chapter:


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