12. ConclusionΒΆ

In this book, we have aimed at providing a practical guide to writing data-parallel programs in Futhark. Futhark is quite an extensive language even though its semantics is pure. It does however have limitations. In particular, Futhark does not currently support recursion and it has no built-in support for algebraic datatypes. Support for some of these concepts are currently being investigated.

On the performance side, there are, of course, always room for improvements. In particular, a number of low-level optimisations, such as register tiling, could turn out helpful for certain kinds of applications. However, even with the current performance level, Futhark may turn out fruitful for serious prototyping and quick time-to-market development.

The Futhark web site at http://futhark-lang.org contains a list of research papers, which will serve as a suggestion for further reading.