Paper Details

%T Santa Claus \- with Mobile Reindeer and Elves
%A Peter H. Welch, Jan Bækgaard Pedersen
%E Peter H. Welch, S. Stepney, F.A.C Polack, Frederick R. M. Barnes, Alistair A. McEwan, G. S. Stiles, Jan F. Broenink, Adam T. Sampson
%B Communicating Process Architectures 2008
%X Mobile processes, along with mobile channels, enable
   process networks to be dynamic: they may change their size
   (number of processes, channels, barriers) and shape
   (connection topology) as they run much like living
   organisms. One of the benefits is that all connections do
   not have to be established statically, in advance of when
   they are needed and open to abuse. In classical occam, care
   had to be taken by processes not to use channels when they
   were not in the right state to use them. With
   occam\-π mobiles, we can arrange that processes
   simply do not have those channels until they get into the
   right state – and not having such channels means
   that their misuse cannot even be expressed! Of course, it
   is a natural consequence of mobile system design that the
   arrivals of channels (or barriers or processes) are the very
   events triggering their exploitation. In our explorations so
   far with occam\-π, we have taken advantage of the
   mobility of data, channels and barriers and seen very good
   results. Very little work has been done with mobile
   processes: the ability to send and receive processes
   through channels, plug them into local networks, fire them
   up, stand them down and move them on again. This talk
   illustrates mobile process design through a solution to
   Trono\[rs]s classical <i>Santa
   Claus Problem</i>. The reindeer and elves are modeled
   as mobile processes that move through holiday resorts,
   stables, work, waiting rooms, Santa\[rs]s Grotto and back
   again. All those destinations are also processes –
   though static ones. As the reindeer and elves arrive at each
   stage, they plug in and do business. We will show the
   occam\-π mechanisms supporting mobile processes,
   confess to one weakness and consider remedies. The
   occam\-π solution did, of course, run correctly the
   first time it passed the stringent safety checks of the
   compiler and is available as open
   source (<tt>http://www.santaclausproblem.net</tt>).

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