Technical Report: DCC-2000-5

A Concurrent Programming Environment
with Support for Distributed Computations
and Code Mobility

Luís Lopes(1), Álvaro Figueira(1), Fernando Silva(1)
Vasco Vasconcelos(2)

(1) {lblopes,arf,fds}@ncc.up.pt / DCC & LIACC, FCUP, University of Porto, Portugal
(2) vv@di.fc.ul.pt / DI, FCUL, University of Lisbon, Portugal

  July 2000


Abstract

We propose a programming model for distributed concurrent systems with mobile objects in the context of a process calculus. Code mobility is induced by lexical scoping on names. Objects and messages migrate towards the site where their prefixes are lexically bound. Class definitions, on the other hand, are downloaded from the site where they are defined, and are instantiated locally upon arrival. We provide several programming examples to demonstrate the expressiveness of the model. Finally, based on this model we describe an architecture for a run-time system supporting concurrent, distributed computations and code mobility.