A Nonannotative Approach to Distributed Data-Parallel Computing

An approach to data-parallel computing is presented which avoids annotation by introducing a type system with symmetric subtyping. The properties that are usually specified in annotations in a machine-dependent way become deducible from type signatures of data objects. The chief advantage of the method is that it caters for portability by presenting a data description in terms of algorithmic properties (most importantly symmetry of data and of access to it) rather than any machine-specific terms.