Abstract

This position paper describes the data field model, a general model for indexed data structures. The aim of this model is to capture the essence of the style of programming where computing on data structures is expressed by operations directly on the structures rather than operations on the individual elements. Array and and data parallel languages support this programming style, and functional languages often provide second order operations on lists and other data structures for the same purpose. The data field model is designed to be abstract enough to encompass a wide range of explicitly or implicitly indexed structures. Thus, algorithms which are expressed in terms of data fields and general operations on them will be independent of the choice of structure from this range -- i.e., generic w.r.t. this choice. This means that the data field approach has some in common with polytypic programming and the theory of shapes.

Citations