The second case isn't much different from the first, since you have to still produce all output up to the syntax error.
e.g. .... 1 million lines of code var j = 10;
and ... same 1 million lines of code var j = 10a; // error If the requirement were just produce the syntax error and no output, then I see finding the right comprimise would be important, but that's not the case here, as output is required in both cases.

IMHO the correct interpretation is "produce the same result as a serial intpreter that analyzes and executes one statement at a time". So in your example there might be a million output lines before the syntax error output and program stop. It would be incorrect to output more or less than the equivalent serial program.

I agree, I was hoping the judges would make a statment as clear as this, stating that parallel execution must produce the same output as the sequential case. It makes a lot of questions disappear, and testing much easier.

Output an error message needs to be accurate. The results output can not do request.

John, That's exactly the idea, to produce the same result as a serial interpreter but with a better throughput. In fact, it's the same that happens when you optimize existing serial code to take advantage of multiple cores. Imagine a black box with inputs and outputs. The parallelized black box must run in parallel but the output should be the same than the serial black box. The following text appears in the problem description: "Output Description: The output to be generated by the application is a line for each interpreted output function that appears in the input. The output should contain the results of the calls to output in the same order that they appear in the input. Correctness is essential but high-throughput and scalability as the number of cores increase is also important. Output for the application will be stored in the text file specified as the second parameter on the command line. If there is a syntax error, the previously explained message should be written to the output file." The ouput should be that same output generated by a sequential execution. Hope it helps. Cheers, Gaston