Language concepts using dynamic and distributed objects
Chang-Hyun Jo, K. M. George · 1991
This paper presents the new concepts of static and dynamic objects in the context of an object-oriented parallel programming language.Examples are used to illustrate those concepts and their usefulness to practical software development.Dynamic objects provide an abstraction of objects similar to processes that move from one node to another in a distributed system, or airplanes that traverse the air-space controlled by different air-traffic control towers.Dynamic objects are semi-persistent entities because the life time of an object can be spanned by several objects which are active sequentially or in parallel.A relation, ownership, is defined between static and dynamic objects.Two programming language constructs export and import are defined to facilitate changes in the ownership relation.This imposes a new control flow among the objects and uses copy-and-delete semantics.The new constructs are illustrated using practical problems.