Multicore Haskell Now!

Don Stewart | Open Source Bridge | June 2010

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 The Grand Challenge
• Making effective use of multicore hardware is the
challenge for programming languages now
• Hardware is getting increasingly complicated:
– Nested memory hierarchies
– Hybrid processors: GPU + CPU, Cell, FPGA...
– Massive compute power sitting mostly idle

• Need new programming models to program

commodity machines effectively
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Haskell is ...
• A purely functional language
• Strongly statically typed
• 20 years old
http://haskell.org
• Born open source http://haskell.org/platform
http://hackage.haskell.org
• Compiled and interpreted
• Used in research, open source and industry

• Built for parallel programming

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

We got libraries now

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

More concerning...

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Haskell and Parallelism: Why?

• Language reasons:
– Purity, laziness and types mean you
can find more parallelism in your code
– No specified execution order
– Speculation and parallelism safe.
• Purity provides inherently more parallelism
• High level: shorter code.

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Haskell and Parallelism

• Statically typed and heavily optimized: more

performance.
• Custom multicore runtime: thread
performance a primary concern – thanks
Simon Marlow!
• Mature: 20 year code base, long term
industrial use, big library system
• Demonstrated performance – emphasis on
shared memory systems
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The Goal
• Parallelism: exploit parallel computing hardware
to improve performance
• Concurrency: logically independent tasks as a
structuring technique

• Improve performance of programs by using

multiple cores at the same time
• Improve performance by hiding latency for IO-
heavy programs
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Getting started with multicore
• Background + Refresh
• Toolchain
• GHC runtime architecture
• The Kit
– Sparks and parallel strategies
– Threads, messages and shared memory
– Transactional memory
– A little bit of data parallelism
• Debugging and profiling
• Garbage collection © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Source for this talk
• Slides and source on the blog, along with links to
papers for further reading

– Google “multicore haskell now”

– http://tinyurl.com/haskell-osbridge
• or
– Visit http://twitter.com/donsbot or
http://donsbot.wordpress.com

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Syntax refresh

main = print (take 1000 primes)

primes = sieve [2..]

where
sieve (p:xs) =
p : sieve [ x | x <- xs, x `mod` p > 0]

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Syntax refresh

main :: IO ()
main = print (take 1000 primes)

primes :: [Int]
primes = sieve [2..]
where
sieve :: [Int] -> [Int]
sieve (p:xs) =
p : sieve [ x | x <- xs, x `mod` p > 0]

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Compiling Haskell programs

$ ghc -O2 -fllvm --make A.hs

[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( A.hs, A.o )
Linking A …

$ ./A
[2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23, … 7883,7901,7907,7919]

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Compiling parallel Haskell programs
Add the –threaded flag for parallel programs

$ ghc -O2 --make -threaded Foo.hs

[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( Foo.hs, Foo.o )
Linking Foo …

Specify at runtime how many real (OS) threads to map

Haskell's logical threads to:
$ ./A +RTS -N8

In this talk “thread” means Haskell's cheap logical threads,

not those 8 OS threads © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 IO is kept separate
In Haskell, side effecting code is tagged statically, via its type.

getChar :: IO Char
putChar :: Char → IO ()

Such side-effecting code can only interact with other side effecting code.
It can't mess with pure code. Checked statically.

Imperative (default sequentialisation and side effects) off by default :-)

Haskellers control effects by trapping them in the IO box

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

The Toolchain

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Toolchain
• GHC 6.12.x
• Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.0
– Click 'download' on http://haskell.org
• Dual core x86-64 laptop running Linux

• GHC 6.12 has recent improvements

– Sparks cheaper
– GC parallelism tuned
– ThreadScope
• GHC 6.13 - LLVM backend © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
The GHC Runtime

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 The GHC Runtime sees the world as ...
• Multiple virtual cpus
– Each virtual cpu has a pool of OS threads
– CPU local spark pools for additional work
• Lightweight Haskell threads map onto OS threads:
many to one.
• Runtime controls thread migration, affinity and
load balancing
• Parallel, generational GC
• Transactional memory and Mvars
• Can run on bare metal, or on Xen... © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thread Hierarchy

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Runtime Settings

Standard flags when compiling and running

parallel programs

– Compile with
• -threaded -O2
– Run with
• +RTS -N2
• +RTS -N4
• ...
• +RTS -N64
• ...
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Warm up lap
• Check your machines are working
• Find out how many cores are available
• Fire up ghc
• Make sure you've got a threaded runtime

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Warm up lap: 01.hs
import GHC.Conc
import System.Info
import Text.Printf
import Data.Version

main = do
printf "Compiled with %s-%s on %s/%s\n"
compilerName
(showVersion compilerVersion)
os arch

printf "Running with %d OS threads\n" numCapabilities

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Warm up lap: 01.hs
$ ghc -O2 --make -threaded 01.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( 01.hs, 01.o )
Linking 01 …

$ ./01 +RTS -N2

Compiled with ghc-6.10 on linux/x86_64
Running with 2 OS threads

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Implicit Parallelism:
Sparks and Strategies

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 The `par` combinator
Lack of side effects makes parallelism easy, right?

f x y = (x * y) + (y ^ 2)

• We could just evaluate every sub-expression in parallel

• It is always safe to speculate on pure code

Creates far too many parallel tasks to execute

So in Haskell, the strategy is to give the user control over
which expressions are sensible to run in parallel
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Semi-implicit parallelism
• Haskell gives us “parallel annotations”.
• Annotations on code hint when parallelism is
useful
– Very cheap post-hoc/ad-hoc parallelism
• Deterministic multicore programming without :
– Threads
– Locks
– Communication
• Adding `par` can't make your program wrong.
• Often good speedups with very little effort
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Provided by: the parallel library

http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/parallel

$ ghc-pkg list parallel

/usr/lib/ghc-6.10.4/./package.conf:
parallel-1.1.0.1

import Control.Parallel
$ cabal unpack paralllel
Also ships with the Haskell Platform.
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The `par` combinator

All parallelism built up from the `par` combinator:

a `par` b

• Creates a spark for 'a'

• Runtime sees chance to convert spark into a thread
• Which in turn may get run in parallel, on another core
• 'b' is returned
• No restrictions on what you can annotate
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Sparks

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 What `par` guarantees
• `par` doesn't guarantee a new Haskell thread
• It “hints” that it would be good to evaluate the
argument in parallel
• The runtime is free to decide to push a spark down
– Depending on workload
– Depending on cost of the value
• This allows `par` to be very cheap
• So we can use it almost anywhere
• To overapproximate the parallelism in our code
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The `pseq` combinator
We also need a way to say “do it in this thread first”
And the second function, pseq:

pseq :: a → b → b

Says not to create a spark, instead:

• “evaluate 'a' in the current thread, then return b”

• Ensures work is run in the right thread
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Putting it together

Together we can parallelise expressions:

f `par` e `pseq` f + e

• One spark created for 'f'

• 'f' spark converted to a thread and executed
• 'e' evaluated in current thread in parallel with 'f'

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Simple sparks
02.hs

$ ghc-6.11.20090228 02.hs --make -threaded -O2

$ time ./02
1405006117752879898543142606244511569936384000008189
./02 2.00s user 0.01s system 99% cpu 2.015 total

$ time ./02 +RTS -N2

1405006117752879898543142606244511569936384000008189
./02 +RTS -N2 2.14s user 0.03s system 140% cpu 1.542 total

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Cautions
• Don't “accidentally parallelize”:
– f `par` f + e – – depends on eval order of (+)
• `pseq` lets us methodically prevent accidents
• Main thread works on 'f' causing spark to fizzle
• Need roughly the same amount of work in each
thread
• ghc 6.12: use ThreadScope to determine this

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Reading runtime output
• Add the -s flag to the program:
– ./02 +RTS -N2 -s
• And we get:
7,904 bytes maximum residency (1 sample(s))
2 MB total memory in use (0 MB lost due to fragmentation)
Generation 0: 2052 collections, 0 parallel, 0.19s, 0.18s elapsed
Generation 1: 1 collections, 0 parallel, 0.00s, 0.00s elapsed
Parallel GC work balance: nan (0 / 0, ideal 2)
SPARKS: 2 (2 converted, 0 pruned)
%GC time 7.9% (10.8% elapsed)
Productivity 92.1% of total user, 144.6% of total elapsed
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 ThreadScope output
• ThreadScope helps us think about spark code. Try
it out! http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/threadscope/

• Now with Dtrace support: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/DTrace

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Finding more parallelism

parfib :: Int -> Int

parfib 0 = 0
parfib 1 = 1
parfib n = n1 `par` (n2 `pseq` n1 + n2)
where
n1 = parfib (n-1)
n2 = parfib (n-2)

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Check what the runtime says
• ./03 43 +RTS -N2 -s
– 24.74s user 0.40s system 120% cpu 20.806 total
...
SPARKS: 701,498,971 (116 converted,
447,756,454 pruned)
...
• Seems like an awful lot of sparks

• N.B. Sparks stats available only in >= ghc 6.11

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Sparks with cutoffs
parfib :: Int -> Int -> Int
parfib n t
| n <= t = nfib n – – cutoff triggers
| otherwise = n1 `par` n2 `pseq` n1 + n2
where n1 = parfib (n-1) t
n2 = parfib (n-2) t

-- sequential version of the code

nfib :: Int -> Int
nfib 0 = 0
nfib 1 = 1
nfib n = nfib (n-2) + nfib (n-1) © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Not too fine grained: 04.hs
• Use thresholds for sparking in the recursion

• $ time ./04 43 11 +RTS -N2

parfib 43 = 433494437
./04 43 17 +RTS -N2 -sstderr 8.05s user 0.03s
system 192% cpu 4.239 total

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Garbage collection
• The GHC garbage collector is a parallel stop-the-
world collector
• Stopping-the-world means running no threads
• You don't want to do that very often
• Check your GC stats (-sstderr) and bring the GC
percent down by increasing the default
allocation (-H400M or -A400M)
• Stay tuned for per-CPU garbage collectors

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Strategies

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Sparks Programming Model
• Deterministic:
– Same results with parallel and sequential programs
– No races, no errors
– Good for reasoning: erase the `par` and get the
original program
• Cheap: sprinkle par as you like, then measure and
refine
• Measurement much easier with Threadscope
• Strategies: high level combinators for common
patterns
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thread model

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Sparks and Strategies: Summary

Cheap to annotate programs with `par` and `pseq`

• Fine-grained parallelism
• Sparks need to be cheap
• Work-strealing thread pool in runtime, underneath
• Relies on purity: no side effects to get in the way
• Takes practice to learn where `par` is beneficial
• A good tool to have in the kit

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 2. Explicit Parallelism:
Threads and Shared Memory

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

Explict Haskell Threads

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Explicit concurrency with threads
For stateful or imperative programs – like web servers, or low
level code – we need explicit threads, not speculative
sparks.

forkIO :: IO () → IO ThreadId

Takes a block of code to run, and executes it in a new

Haskell thread

In the base library, part of the Haskell Platform

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Concurrent programming with threads:
07.hs

import Control.Concurrent
import System.Directory

main = do
forkIO (writeFile "xyz" "thread was here")
v ← doesFileExist "xyz"
print v

Non-determinism – welcome to concurrent programming

(Unlike spark programming) © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Programming model
• Threads are preemptively scheduled
• Non-deterministic scheduling: random interleaving
• When the main thread terminates, all threads
terminate (“daemonic threads”)
• Threads may be preempted when they allocate
memory
• Communicate via messages or shared memory

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Asynchronous Exceptions: 08.hs 09.hs
• We need to communicate with threads somehow.
• One simple way is via asynchronous messages.
– import Control.Exception
• Just throw messages at each other, catching them
and handling them as you see fit.
• throwTo and catch/handle
• Good technique to know
• Good for writing fault tolerant code

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Shared Memory: MVars
• We need to communicate between threads
• We need threads to wait on results
• In pure code, values are immutable, so safe to
share
• However, with threads, we use shared, mutable
synchronizing variables to communicate

Synchronization achieved via MVars or STM

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Shared Memory: MVars
• import Control.Concurrent.MVar

• MVars are boxes. They are either full or empty

– putMVar :: MVar a → a → IO ()
– takeMVar :: MVar a → IO a

• “put” on a full MVar causes the thread to sleep

until the MVar is empty
• “take” on an empty MVar blocks until it is full.
• The runtime will wake you up when you're needed
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Putting things in their boxes

do box <- newEmptyMVar

forkIO (… f … ; putMVar box f)
e `pseq` return () –- force 'e'
f <- takeMVar box
print (e + f)

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Forking tasks and communicating: 10.hs
• Here we create explicit Haskell threads, and set
up shared memory for them to communicate
• Lower level than using sparks. More control

$ time ./10 +RTS -N2 -stderr

93326215443944152681...
./10 +RTS -N2 -stderr 2.32s user 0.06s system
146% cpu 1.627 total

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Hiding IO Latency
• When you have some expensive IO action, fork a
thread for the work
• And return to the user for more work
• Works well for hiding disk and network latency
• Transparently scales: just add more cores and the
Haskell threads will go there.
• Handle network connections with 100s of
thousands of threads concurrently (New epoll-
based scheduler)
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Shared Memory: Chans: 14.hs
• Chans: good for unbounded numbers of shared
messages
• Send and receive messages of a pipe-like
structure
• Can be converted to a lazy list, representing all
future messages!

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Channels
main = do
ch ← newChan
forkIO (worker ch)
xs ← getChanContents ch – – convert future msgs to list
mapM_ print xs – – lazily print as msgs arrive

worker ch = forever $ do
v ← readFile "/proc/loadavg"
writeChan ch v – – send msg back to receiver
threadDelay (10^5)
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Intel Haskell Concurrent Collections
• Intel Concurrent Collections for Haskell
– Scalable parallel programs over computation graphs
– LGPLd
– Pure parallel programming model built over forkIO
and Chans
– Try it out.
• http://software.intel.com/en-
us/blogs/2010/05/27/announcing-intel-
concurrent-collections-for-haskell-01/

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transactional Memory

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 MVars can deadlock
MVar programs can deadlock, if one thread is waiting for a
value from another, that will never appear.

Haskell lets us write lock-free synchronization via software

transactional memory

Higher level than MVars, much safer, composable, but a bit

slower. Can starve/livelock.

Continuing theme: multiple levels of resolution

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Software Transactional Memory
• Each atomic block appears to work in complete
isolation
• Runtime publishes modifications to shared
variables to all threads, or,
• Restarts the transaction that suffered contention
• You have the illusion you're the only thread

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 STM
• STM added to Haskell in 2005 (MVars in 1995, from Id).
• Used in a number of real, concurrent systems
• A composable, safe synchronization abstraction

• An optimisitic model
– Transactions run inside atomic blocks assuming no
conflicts
– System checks consistency at the end of the transaction
– Retry if conflicts
– Requires control of side effects (handled in the type system
)
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 The stm package
• http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/stm

• $ ghc-pkg list stm

/usr/lib/ghc-6.10.4/./package.conf:
stm-2.1.1.2

• import Control.Concurrent.STM
• $ cabal unpack stm
• In the Haskell Platform
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 STM
data STM a
atomically :: STM a → IO a
retry :: STM a
orElse :: STM a → STM a → STM a

• We use 'STM a' to build up atomic blocks.

• Transaction code can only run inside atomic blocks
• Inside atomic blocks it appears as if no other threads are
running (notion of isolation)
• However, the system uses logs and rollback to handle conflicts
• 'orElse' lets us compose atomic blocks into larger pieces
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Transaction variables
TVars are the variables the runtime watches for contention:

data TVar a
newTVar :: a → STM (TVar a)
readTVar :: TVar a → STM a
writeTVar :: TVar a → a → STM ()

Actions always succeed: implemented by logging and

rollback when there are conflicts, so no deadlocks!

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Atomic bank transfers
transfer :: TVar Int -> TVar Int -> Int -> IO ()

transfer from to amount =

atomically $ do
balance <- readTVar from
if balance < amount
then retry
else do
writeTVar from (balance - amount)
tobalance <- readTVar to
writeTVar to (tobalance + amount)
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Safety
• For it to be possible to roll back transactions,
atomic blocks can't have visible side effects
• Enforced by the type system
– In the STM monad, you can guarantee atomic safety
• atomically :: STM a → IO a
• No way to do IO in a transaction...
– Only pure code
– Exceptions
– Non termination
– Transactional effects
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 retry: where the magic is
• How does the runtime know when to wake up an
atomic section?
• It blocks the thread until something changes in
one of the in-scope transaction variables
• Automatically waits until we can make progress!

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 orElse: trying alternatives
• Don't always just want to retry forever
• Sometimes we need to try something else
– orElse :: STM a → STM a → STM a
• Compose two atomic sections into one
• If the first needs to “retry”, run the second.
– can write “select”-like actions atomically now

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Treating the world as a transaction
• You can actually run IO actions from STM
– GHC.Conc.unsafeIOToSTM :: IO a → STM a

• If you can fulfil the proof obligations...

• Useful for say, lifting transactional database

actions into transactions in Haskell.
• Mostly we'll try to return a value to the IO monad
from the transaction and run that
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Summary of benefits
• STM composes easily!
• Just looks like imperative code
• Even when there are atomic sections involved

• No deadlocks.
• Lock safe code when composed is still lock safe

• Progress: keep your transactions short

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

Data Parallelism:
Briefly

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Data Parallel Haskell

We can write a lot of parallel programs with the last two

techniques, but:

• par/seq are very light, but granularity is hard

• forkIO/MVar/STM are more precise, but more complex
• Trade offs between abstraction and precision

The third way to parallel Haskell programs:

• nested data parallelism

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Data Parallel Haskell
Simple idea:

Do the same thing in parallel

to every element of a large collection

If your program can be expressed this way, then,

• No explicit threads or communication

• Clear cost model (unlike `par`)
• Good locality, easy partitioning
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Parallel Arrays
• Adds parallel array syntax:
– [: e :]
– Along with many parallel “combinators”
• mapP, filterP, zipP, foldP, …
– Very high level approach
• Parallel comprehensions
– Actually have parallel semantics
• DPH is oriented towards large array programming
• Simpler library for flat parallel arrays: Repa

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Import Data.Array.Parallel

sumsq :: [: Float :] → Float

sumsq a = sumP [: x*x | x ← a :]

dotp :: [:Float:] -> [:Float:] -> Float

dotp v w = sumP (zipWithP (*) v w)

Similar functions for map, zip, append, filter, length etc.

• Break array into N chunks (for N cores)
• Run a sequential loop to apply 'f' to each chunk element
• Run that loop on each core
• Combine the results © 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Cons of flat data parallelism

While simple, the downside is that a single parallel loop

drives the whole program.

Not very compositional.

No rich data structures, just flat things.

So how about nested data parallelism?

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Nested Data Parallelism
Simple idea:

Do the same thing in parallel

to every element of a large collection

plus

Each thing you do may in turn be a nested parallel

computation
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Nested Data Parallelism

If your program can be expressed this way, then,

• No explicit threads or communication

• Clear cost model (unlike `par`)
• Good locality, easy partitioning

• Breakthrough:
Flattening: a compiler transformation to systematically
transform any nested data parallel program into a flat one

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Import Data.Array.Parallel

Nested data-parallel programming, via the vectoriser:

type Vector = [: Float :]

type Matrix = [: Vector :]

matMul :: Matrix → Vector → Vector

matMul m v = [: vecMul r v | r ← m :]

Data parallel functions (vecMul) inside data parallel

functions

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 The vectorizer
• GHC gets significantly smarter
– Implements a vectorizer
– Flattens nested data parallel programsautomatically
– Project to add a GPU backend well advanced
• (see the “accelerate” library)
• See:
– “Running Haskell Array Computations on a GPU” (video)
– “Regular, shape-polymorphic, parallel arrays in Haskell”
– “Harnessing the Multicores: Nested Data Parallelism in
Haskell”

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

Flat data parallel arrays: Repa

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Small example: vect.hs
• Uses the dph libraries
– dph-prim-par
– dph

sumSq :: Int → Int

sumSq n = sumP (mapP (*) (enumFromToP 1 n))

Requires -fvectorize

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Example: sumsq
• $ ghc -O2 -threaded --make vect.hs -package dph-
par -package dph-prim-par-0.3

• $ time ./vect 100000000 +RTS -N2

N = 100000000: 2585/4813 2585/4813 2585/4813
./vect 100000000 +RTS -N2 2.81s user 2.22s
system 178% cpu 2.814 tota

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

In conclusion...

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Multicore Haskell Now
• Sophisticated language runtime
• Sparks and parallel strategies
• Explicit threads
• Messages and MVars for shared memory
• Transactional memory
• Data parallel arrays
• All in GHC 6.10, even better in GHC 6.12
• http://hackage.haskell.org/platform

© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Other interesting work...
• Haskell (research) for distributed and grid systems
– http://www.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~kh/
– http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~dsg/gph/
– http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~eden/
• Simon PJ on DPH during the Iceland volcano
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWSZ4c9yqW8
• “Regular, shape-polymorphic, parallel arrays in Haskell”
– http://hackage.haskell.org/package/repa
• “GPU Kernels as Data Parallel Array Computations in
Haskell” –
www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~chak/papers/gpugen.pdf
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Other fun things...
• Language.C – C compiler frontend and printer
– http://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-c
• Language.Python – Python parsing and analysis
– http://hackage.haskell.org/package/language-python
• BERnie's Python 3 (berp)
– http://hackage.haskell.org/package/berp
• CUDA bindings for Haskell
– http://hackage.haskell.org/package/cuda
• High level bindings to LLVM
– http://hackage.haskell.org/package/llvm
• GHC now uses LLVM for the backend
– http://donsbot.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/evolving-faster-haskell-
programs-now-with-llvm/
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Thanks

This talk made possible by:

Simon Peyton Jones Simon Marlow

Satnam Singh Tim Harris
Manuel Chakravarty Phil Trinder
Gabriele Keller Kevin Hammond
Roman Leschinkskiy Martin Sulzmann
Bryan O'Sullivan John Goerzen

Read their papers or visit

haskell.org for the full story!
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2009 Galois, Inc. All rights reserved.