Experience report: erlang in acoustic ray tracing

We investigated the relative merits of C++ and Erlang in the implementation of a parallel acoustic ray tracing algorithm for the U.S. Navy. We found a much smaller learning curve and better debugging environment for parallel Erlang than for pthreads-based C++ programming. Our C++ implementation outperformed the Erlang program by at least 12x. Attempts to use Erlang on the IBM Cell BE microprocessor were frustrated by Erlang's memory footprint. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.3.2 [PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES]: Language Classifications--Applicative (functional) languages; D.3.2 [PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES]: Language Classifications--Concurrent, distributed, and parallel languages General Terms Design, Performance Keywords acoustic ray tracing, C++, Erlang

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ICFP
• Authors: Christian Convey, Andrew Fredricks, Christopher Gagner, Douglas Maxwell, Lutz Hamel
• Keywords: Erlang Program, ICFP 2008, Parallel Acoustic Ray, Parallel Erlang, Programming Languages