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Data Flow Computation

  • Conference paper
Book cover Control Flow and Data Flow: Concepts of Distributed Programming

Part of the book series: Springer Study Edition ((SSE,volume 14))

Abstract

All data flow models describe computation in terms of locally controlled events; each event is the “firing” of an “actor”. There is no notion of a single point or locus of control—nothing corresponding to the program location counter of a conventional sequential computer. Since many actors may be ready to fire, these models can represent many asynchronous concurrent computational events. Nevertheless, they can guarantee an input/output behavior that is unaffected by the order in which the firing of actors is carried out. This property of data flow models—determinacy—ensures that their input/output behavior is functional. Thus the semantics of data flow graphs are closely related to the semantics of applicative programming languages, and we will illustrate the correspondence of data flow graphs to textual programs by means of program fragments written in Val, an applicative programming language developed at MIT for scientific applications.

In this lecture we introduce and compare three important conceptual models of data-driven computation: static data flow graphs, recursive program graphs, and the tagged-token model.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., USA

    Jack B. Dennis (Professor)

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  1. Jack B. Dennis
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik, Universität Passau, Postfach 2540, 8390, Passau, Federal Republic of Germany

    Manfred Broy

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© 1986 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Dennis, J.B. (1986). Data Flow Computation. In: Broy, M. (eds) Control Flow and Data Flow: Concepts of Distributed Programming. Springer Study Edition, vol 14. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-82921-5_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-82921-5_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-17082-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-82921-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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