Distributed computing using autonomous objects

Most existing distributed systems are structured as statically compiled processes communicating with each other via messages. The system's intelligence is embodied in the processes, while the messages contain simple, passive pieces of information. This is referred to as the communicating object...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inComputer (Long Beach, Calif.) Vol. 29; no. 8; pp. 55 - 61
Main Authors Bic, L.F., Fukuda, M., Dillencourt, R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.08.1996
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Computer languages
Computer programming
Computer science
Distributed computing
Distributed processing
Dynamic programming
Humanoid robots
Humans
Joining processes
Navigation
Orbital robotics
Robot kinematics
Runtime
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Summary:Most existing distributed systems are structured as statically compiled processes communicating with each other via messages. The system's intelligence is embodied in the processes, while the messages contain simple, passive pieces of information. This is referred to as the communicating objects paradigm. In the autonomous objects paradigm, a message has its own identity and behavior. It decides at runtime where it wants to propagate and what tasks to perform there; the nodes become simply generic interpreters that enable messages to navigate and compute. In this scenario, an application's intelligence is embodied in and carried by messages as they propagate through the network. The autonomous objects paradigm is more flexible than the communicating objects paradigm because it allows developers to change the program's behavior after it has started to run. We based our system, MESSENGERS, on autonomous objects, and intended it for the composition and coordination of concurrent activities in a distributed environment. It combines powerful navigational capabilities found in other autonomous objects based systems with efficient dynamic linking mechanisms supported by some new programming languages, like Java.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0018-9162
1558-0814
DOI:10.1109/2.532046