Reduction, data flow and control flow models of computation

Abstract

This paper introduces a systematic approach to the modeling of computational processes in terms of • the control discipline which drives a computation step by step ahead; • the operational discipline which, in an orderly manner, supplies operators with operands. Starting with a simple PrT net primitive representing the application of a function to one or more arguments, we systematically derive reduction, data flow and control flow as basic models of computations and elaborate on their conceptual differences. Particular emphasis is placed on the implications as regards non-sequential processing.