Paper by Erik D. Demaine

Reference:

Erik D. Demaine, “Higher-Order Concurrency in Java”, in Proceedings of the Parallel Programming and Java Conference (WoTUG20), Enschede, the Netherlands, April 12–16, 1997, pages 34–47.

Abstract:

In this paper we examine an extension to Hoare's Communicating Sequential Processes model called higher-order concurrency, proposed by Reppy. In this extension, communication algorithms (or events) are first-class objects and can be created and manipulated dynamically. In addition, threads are automatically garbage collected and channels are first-class, that is, they can be passed over other channels. We describe the design of a Java package that implements the main features of higher-order concurrency, with similar ease-of-use to Reppy's Concurrent ML system. Our implementation can be easily extended to use a distributed system, which is a major limitation with Concurrent ML. We also hope to bring the idea of higher-order concurrency to a wider audience, since it is extremely powerful and flexible, but currently only well known to the programming-languages community.

Length:

The paper is 14 pages and the talk is 45 minutes.

Availability:

The paper is available in PostScript (192k), gzipped PDF (433k), and ZIPped PDF (434k).

The talk is also available in PostScript (192k).

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