A theory of organization
Hermann von Issendorff · ACM SIGPLAN Notices · 1990
The theory of organization deals with the representation and treatment of processing Structures and their realization. It offers an algebra, which in particular is qualified for a unified description of soft- and hardware. The term replacement rules coming along with the algebra allow to change a processing structure in a variety of ways. In particular, there are order changing rules allowing to generate any representation between the minimum order of dataflow and the maximum order of a sequence. Moreover, conversion rules can be specified for the transformation of conventional programming languages into the (language of the) algebra. The same is possible for the conversion of Boolean algebra. Finally, a circuit description language can be derived from the algebra, which seems to be well suited for VLSI-layout. Part 1 of this paper covers a general introduction to the subject and the notions, the relations, and the algebra on which the theory of organization is based. Part 2 deals with nondeterminism and communicating processes, presents the conversion rules for a subset of Pascal and for Boolean expressions and introduces the circuit description language.