First, I didn't build the language/compiler myself (it was written in my group before I arrived). It would be embedded in other languages, much as SQL is: you e

First, I didn't build the language/compiler myself (it was written in my group before I arrived). It would be embedded in other languages, much as SQL is: you execute queries (first against data on a local disk distributed via version control, later against a web service). The queries you'd make would be like: "Give me difference of (union of ( all machines running 64 bit Linux , all machine in cluster "match", all machines in wast coast datacenter )) machines starting "box10" and then show me the vlans these machines are on". Of course this would be in a much more terse (but very easy to learn) language. Perl/Python/C code (and through a CLI tool, shell scripts) would then do operations on returned values (i.e. parallel ssh to execute a command, parallel TCP call).