History And Inspiration

The origin for the inspiration of the CPA series of conferences, which began as the OUG-X, and later WoTUG-X series, is the Theory of Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) of C. A. R. Hoare. This gave rise to the design of the occam programming language and the Transputer – an entire computer on a single chip that could be composed with others to construct scalable systems. The combination of new theory, programming language, and system architecture, represented an unprecedented opportunity and challenge to systems engineering methodology. The OUG/ WoTUG/ CPA conferences have sought to answer that challenge and help meet the opportunity. The proceedings of the last seventeen have been published by IOS Press, as part of their Concurrent Systems Engineering Series. They have fostered an extended international research and development community over the years, and have significantly contributed to many successful commercial applications.

CSP embodies many ideas, all whole-heartedly endorsed by the CPA community. These include the pursuit of simplicity and security (against error), and the overriding importance of clear, precise, and consistent, abstraction.