Algorithms and Data Structures for New Models of Computation

In the early days of computer science, the community settled on a simple standard model of computing and a basic canon of general purpose algorithms and data structures suited to that model. With isochronous computing, heterogeneous multiprocessors, flash memory, energy-aware computing, cache and other anisotropic memory, distributed computing, streaming environments, functional languages, graphics coprocessors, etc., the basic canon of algorithms and data structures is not enough. Software developers know of real-world constraints and new models of computation and use them to design effective algorithms and data structures. These constraints motivate the development of elegant algorithms with broad utility. As examples, we present four algorithms that were motivated by specific hardware nuances, but are generally useful: reservoir sampling, majority of a stream, B-heap, and compacting an array in Theta(log n) time.