backcover.txt

Welcome to "Parallel Programming in Futhark", an introductory book about the Futhark programming language.  Futhark is a data-parallel array programming language that uses the vocabulary of functional programming to provide a parallel programming model that is easy to understand, yet can be compiled to very efficient code by an optimising compiler.  Futhark is a small language - it is not designed to replace general-purpose languages for application programming.  The intended use case is that Futhark is used only for the small but compute-intensive parts of an application, as the Futhark compiler generates code that can be easily called from non-Futhark code.

This book is written for a reader who already has some experience with functional programming. The book introduces Futhark through small examples that each aim to demonstrate some feature or facet of the language.  Furthermore, the book covers some of the theoretical background of data-parallel programming. The book also elaborates on some of the optimisations that can be expected from the compiler and give practical suggestions to how the programmer may improve the parallel performance of a Futhark program.

Copyright 2018, Martin Elsman, Troels Henriksen, and Cosmin E. Oancea.