An Action Semantics for ML Concurrency Primitives

Transformation-Based Reactive System Development, Fourth AMAST Workshop on Real-Time Systems, Concurrent, and Distributed Software, 1997

We extend the Action-Oberon language for executing action systems with type-bound actions. Type-bound actions combine the concepts of type-bound procedures (methods) and actions, bringing object orientation to action systems. Type-bound actions are created at runtime along with the objects of their bound types. They permit the encapsulation of data and code in objects. Allowing an action to have more than one participant gives us a mechanism for expressing n-ary communication between objects. By showing how type-bound actions can logically be reduced to plain actions, we give our extension a firm foundation in the Refinement Calculus.

Software, IEE Proceedings-, 2005

Usually, the majority of language constructs found in a programming language can also be found in many other languages, because language design is based on reuse. This should be reflected in the way we give semantics to programming languages. It can be achieved by making a language description consist of a collection of modules, each defining a single language construct. The description of a single language construct should be language independent, so that it can be reused in other descriptions without any changes. We call a language description framework "constructive" when it supports independent description of individual constructs.

Compiler Construction, 1992

We report progress on the development of Actress, a compiler generator based on action semantics. It consists of a number of modules, written in SML, that can be composed to construct either an action notation compiler or a simple compiler generator. We also outline current and future developments that will improve the quality of the generated compilers.

Science of Computer Programming, 2003

This article demonstrates a method for composing a programming language by combining action-semantics modules. Each module is defined separately, and then a programming-language module is defined by combining existing modules. This method enables the language designer to gradually develop a language by defining, selecting and combining suitable modules. The resulting modular structure is substantially different from that previously employed in action-semantic descriptions.

Daimi Report Series, 1984

The purpose of this article is to describe a high-level conceptual framework-a taxonomy-for programming languages with language constructs for specification of cosequential and concurrent processes. We identify the major differences and similarities between cosequential and concurrent processes, and we discuss the essential aspects of cosequential processes, concerning different patterns in which control can be transferred between the processes. Moreover, we discuss the important common properties of cosequential and concurrent processes: synchronization and communication. Figure 1. A taxonomy for cosequential processes.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

The advent of multi-core processors offers an opportunity to increase the usage of Executable UML. Researchers are advocating the division of software systems into a productivity layer and an efficiency layer to shield mainstream programmers from the complexities of parallelism. Such separation of application and platform concerns is the foundation of Executable UML. To leverage this opportunity, an approach to Executable UML must address the complexity of the UML standard and provide a formal model of concurrency. In this paper, we introduce the Actor-eUML model and formalize the mapping between actors in the Actor model and Executable UML agents (active objects) by unifying the semantics of actor behavior and the hierarchical state machine (HSM) semantics of Executable UML agents. The UML treatment of concurrency is simplified, and the Actor model is extended to enable a set of actor behaviors to specify the HSM for an Executable UML active class.

Cybernetics and Systems Analysis, 1998

We present a general theory of action-based languages as a paradigm, for the description, of those computational systems which include elements of concurrency and networking, and extend this approach to describe dist.ributed systems and also t,o describe the interaction of a system, with an environment. As part of this approach we introduce the Action Language as a common model for the class of nondeterministic concurrent programming languages and define its intensional and interaction semantics in terrors of continuous transformation of environment behavior. This semantics i.s specialized for programs with stores, and extended to describe distributed computations.

In the GEMOC project, moccml is dedicated to define the concurrency model associated with the DSMLs. The purpose of this document is to define the operational semantics of the moccml language and also to define the first steps of an approach to provide an exhaustive exploration of the moccml models. This document presents the operational semantics of the moccml language. The chapter is divided in several sections that present the grammar rules of the language and the operational rules mainly defined using mathematical grounds and Plotkin [2] rules. Chapter 3 presents the elements that are relevant to describe the evolution of a moccml model. Chapter 4 presents a draft of how exhaustive exploration is to be realized in a context using moccml models. Finally Chapter 5 presents the conclusion.

Aldwych is proposed as the foundation of a general purpose language for parallel applications. It has aspects variously of concurrent, functional, logic and object-oriented languages, and may also interface with existing systems like a coordination language, yet it forms an integrated whole. It is intended to be applicable both for small-scale parallel programming, and for large-scale open systems Keywords: Concurrency, actors, multi-paradigm languages, coordination, open systems. 1. Introduction The language Linda [Gele 85] was launched as the underdog, competing against sophisticated approaches to parallel programming [Ca & Ge 89], but has triumphed over those approaches it then saw as its competitors, to the point where it is now seen as the generic model for "co-ordination languages" [Ci & Ha 96]. As its authors note [Ge & Ca 92] one of the main reasons for this is that Linda provided a simple "glue" that could be used to combine systems written in languages ...

We present a fully abstract semantics for real-time distributed computing of the Ada and OCCAM kind in a denotational style. This semantics tums tennination, communication along channels, and the time communication takes place, into observ-abIes. Yet it is the coarsest semantics to do so which is syntax-directed (this is known as full abstraction). It extends the linear history semantics for CSP of Francez, Lehman and Pnueli. Our execution model is based on maximizing concurrent activity as opposed to interleaving (in which only one action occurs at the time and arbitrary delays are incurred between actions). It is a variant of the maximal parallelism model of Salwicki and MUldner. The authon arc working in and partially supported by Espri1 Project 937: Debugging and Specification« Real-Time ~beddcd Systems (DESCARTES).