Distributed functional programming in Scheme

Abstract

In this thesis, we present a framework for writing distributed computer programs in Scheme using simple "future" semantics. This allows a Scheme program originally written for execution on a single computer to be run in a distributed manner on a cluster of computers with very little modification to the program. The structure of the computation can be extremely general and need not be specified in advance. In order to provide this programming environment, we implemented a system of job execution servers which transparently execute arbitrary Scheme code written in a functional or mostly functional style. The use of a functional, side effect free style of programming simplifies the challenges of data consistency. A number of demonstrations of the system are presented, including a distributed SAT solver. The performance of the system is shown to increase roughly linearly with the number of servers employed.