Experimental Software Systems: Linear Naming: Experimental Software for Optimizing Communication Protocols

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EIA-9806718 Mairson, Harry G. Bawden, Alan Brandeis University ESS: Linear Naming: Experimental Software for Optimizing Communication Protocols The goal of our research project is to design and implement significantly new forms of procedure calling protocols for local and distributed communication. This project combines development of applications technology with foundational research on programming language design. The research focuses on the implementation of a new procedure-calling protocol that incorporates the desirable semantics of call-by-value with the efficiency of call-by-name. The implementation depends on the technology of sharing values as well as the sharing of computation threads. Closely linked is the development of language primitives for handling values and control structures in a symmetric manner. The pragmatics of sharing is intimately connected to the crucial role of "linear naming" in distributed network computation, especially when named computations are mobile. Procedure-calling protocols and their interaction with naming form the glue that holds complex computations together. In a distributed environment, parts of an evolving computation can become separated from each other. A fundamental problem is bringing these parts back together again when the appropriate time arrives---this is what naming is for. Proper attention to linearity in naming can make cross-network references cheap, can support highly mobile data structures, and can facilitate heuristics to effectively migrate tasks on demand without explicit guidance.