Ivan Sutherland, Portland State University, USA
We are trapped in a sequential prison. We use sequential character strings to write sequential programs to control sequential computers. No wonder concurrency remains elusive.
How did we come to be here? The high cost of vacuum tube logic forced sequence upon early computer builders. Sequential character strings were the economic way to describe what sequential computers should do. Sequential programs controlled the expensive part of the machine, namely logic. The lethargic pace of logic circuits masked the cost of moving data over distance, allowing programming languages to ignore the cost of communication.
Today, the time delay and energy cost of communicating over distance dominate modern computers; logic is essentially free. Why then, do programming languages continue to control logic and largely ignore communication?
It will take a broad effort to escape our sequential prison, requiring changes in hardware, programming notations and the ways in which they are expressed. Most importantly, it will require recognizing that we are in sequential prison, and planning for an escape.
Bio
Ivan Sutherland was a Vice President and Fellow at Sun Microsystems where he helped Sun to develop new technologies. After retiring from Sun in 2009, Ivan and Marly Roncken established the Asynchronous Research Center (ARC) at Portland State University. Ivan is now a full-time volunteer at PSU with the title Visiting Scientist. He offers courses related to his research interests in self-timed and concurrent systems.
Ivan has enjoyed a broad variety of work experiences. He was the second director of DARPA’s computer office. He and Carver Mead founded Caltech’s Computer Science effort. Prior to that he taught at Harvard and the University of Utah. In 1968 he and Dave Evans started the computer graphics company that bears their names. He and two other partners started Advanced Technology Ventures in 1980. He has served on many corporate boards.
Ivan’s main interests are family and research. At the ARC he combines both; Marly and Ivan married in 2006. Together they explore alternatives to conventional computer design.
