5

In the old *Lisp on the connection machine there was an interface to vectors, sets etc. that allowed computation over collections in a way similar to MapReduce (with alpha and beta as the apply and reduction respectively). Are there resources on the internet that describe these in detail? Are there any implementations running on modern systems (linux etc?)

  • 1
    One can find the language specification from the ACM (as a paid-only article), and Hillis' "The Connection Machine" has a long section on how it was used. The only other info I've found is about why it was NOT used or sold: nested xectors caused problems. And I found some slides from Google that seem to indicate their MapReduce was pretty much developed as an attempt to emulate CMLisp's best features. – Darren Ringer Jun 15 '15 at 20:11
  • 1
    These slides are not hosted at the original URL anymore, but thankfully archive.org still has a copy http://web.archive.org/web/20100627115501/http://citi2.rice.edu/WS07/PrestonBriggs.pdf (I lost the copy which I had and found the original URL through some random IRC logs :o https://ccl.clozure.com/irc-logs/lisp/2009-11/lisp-2009.11.05.txt). CC @DarrenRinger who might want to grab a copy while that material is still online :) . – Suzanne Soy Jul 05 '21 at 03:04