Some while back, I asked the Perk5-porters whether there were any
parts of Perl that could benefit from vector processors (e.g., the
G4 Velocity Engine). The consensus of the respondents ranged from
"probably not" to "I don't want to think about it".
I think that better answers could have been found, given the right
motivation, but nobody was taking VPs seriously back then (the G4
was seen as a small, niche machine). With booming sales of iMacs
and the advent of Mac OS X, however, the G4 is starting to look a
bit more real.
Looking at some of Perl6 language features (e.g., hyperoperators
and Damian's Quantum magic), it seems like it might be time to ask
the question again. So:
* What parts of Perl6 might benefit from a vector processor?
* Are there any language constructs (pragmas?) that might be
useful to add to enhance use of VPs?
* Is there an abstract model that could let Perl6 take advantage
of assorted VP architectures?
-r
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