The Bird-Meertens Formalism as a Parallel Model

The expense of developing and maintaining software is the major obstacle to the routine use of parallel computation. Architecture independent programming o ers a way of avoiding the problem, but the requirements for a model of parallel computation that will permit it are demanding. The Bird-Meertens formalism is an approach to developing and executing data-parallel programs; it encourages software development by equational transformation; it can be implemented e ciently across a wide range of architecture families; and it can be equipped with a realistic cost calculus, so that trade-o s in software design can be explored before implementation. It makes an ideal model of parallel computation.