Abstract State Machines 1988-1998: Commented ASM Bibliography

An annotated bibliography of papers which deal with or use Abstract State Machines (ASMs), as of January 1998.Comment: Also maintained as a BibTeX file at http://www.eecs.umich.edu/gasm

Semantic models for concurrent logic languages

AbstractIn this paper we develop semantic models for a class of concurrent logic languages. We give two operational semantics based on a transition system, a declarative semantics and a denotational semantics. One operational and the declarative semantics model the success set, that is, the set of computed answer substitutions corresponding to all successfully terminating computations. The other operational and the denotational semantics also model deadlock and infinite computations. For the declarative and the denotational semantics we extend standard notions such as unification in order to cope with the synchronization mechanism of the class of languages we study. The basic mathematical structure for the declarative semantics is the complete lattice of sets of finite streams of substitutions. In the denotational semantics, we use a complete metric space of tree-like structures that are labelled with functions that represent the basic unification step. We look at the relations between the different models. We relate first the two operational semantics and next the declarative and denotational semantics with their respective operational counterparts

Programming Languages for Distributed Computing Systems

When distributed systems first appeared, they were programmed in traditional sequential languages, usually with the addition of a few library procedures for sending and receiving messages. As distributed applications became more commonplace and more sophisticated, this ad hoc approach became less satisfactory. Researchers all over the world began designing new programming languages specifically for implementing distributed applications. These languages and their history, their underlying principles, their design, and their use are the subject of this paper. We begin by giving our view of what a distributed system is, illustrating with examples to avoid confusion on this important and controversial point. We then describe the three main characteristics that distinguish distributed programming languages from traditional sequential languages, namely, how they deal with parallelism, communication, and partial failures. Finally, we discuss 15 representative distributed languages to give the flavor of each. These examples include languages based on message passing, rendezvous, remote procedure call, objects, and atomic transactions, as well as functional languages, logic languages, and distributed data structure languages. The paper concludes with a comprehensive bibliography listing over 200 papers on nearly 100 distributed programming languages

Coordination using a Single-Writer Multiple-Reader Concurrent Logic Language

The principle behind concurrent logic programming is a set of processes which co-operate in monotonically constraining a global set of variables to particular values. Each process will have access to only some of the variables, and a process may bind a variable to a tuple containing further variables which may be bound later by other processes. This is a suitable model for a coordination language. In this paper we describe a type system which ensures the co-operation principle is never breached, and which makes clear through syntax the pattern of data flow in a concurrent logic program. This overcomes problems previously associated with the practical use of concurrent logic languages

Design, application and implementation of a paralled logic programming language

Imperial Users onl