Multicore programming in Haskell - Control.Parallel

Question

I\'m trying to learn how to use the Control.Parallel module, but I think I didn\'t get it right.

I\'m trying to run the following code (fibs.hs).

Answer 1

As Don explained, the problem is that you are creating too many sparks. Here's how you might rewrite it to get a good speedup.

import Control.Parallel

cutoff :: Int
cutoff = 20

parFib :: Int -> Int
parFib n | n < cutoff = fib n
parFib n = p `par` q `pseq` (p + q)
    where
      p = parFib $ n - 1
      q = parFib $ n - 2

fib :: Int -> Int
fib 0 = 0
fib 1 = 1
fib n = fib (n - 1) + fib (n - 2)

main :: IO ()
main = print $ parFib 40

demonstration:

[computer ~]$ ghc --make -threaded -O2 Main.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( Main.hs, Main.o )
Linking Main ...
[computer ~]$ time ./Main +RTS -N1
102334155

real    0m1.509s
user    0m1.450s
sys     0m0.003s
[computer ~]$ time ./Main +RTS -N2
102334155

real    0m0.776s
user    0m1.487s
sys     0m0.023s
[computer ~]$ time ./Main +RTS -N3
102334155

real    0m0.564s
user    0m1.487s
sys     0m0.030s
[computer ~]$ time ./Main +RTS -N4
102334155

real    0m0.510s
user    0m1.587s
sys     0m0.047s
[computer ~]$