Technical Report: DCC-99-1

Programming and Implementation Issues in Non-Uniform TyCO

 António Ravara⁽¹⁾ and Luís Lopes ⁽²⁾

⁽¹⁾ Dep. Matematica, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal
⁽²⁾ DCC & LIACC, Universidade do Porto,Rua do Campo Alegre, 823 4150 Porto, Portugal

 September 1999

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Abstract

We present an abstract machine specification for non-uniform TyCO. TyCO is a name-passing calculus of concurrent objects. Since
concurrent objects do not always offer the same methods due to synchronization constraints, we advocate non-uniform interfaces, i.e.,
interfaces with only enabled methods.  From the programming point of view the use of non-uniform interfaces for representing objects, as opposed to the uniform record interfaces, allows a more intuitive and expressive definition of objects and in general object-based data structures.  This is a result of the far richer behaviors allowed by the non-uniformity.  From an implementation point of view, frequently the code is much shorter, both in the source programs as well as in the final byte code or other executable format; even in cases where the difference in code size is not significant, the use of a single name for all of the object's dynamic instances substantially reduces heap space, and allows optimizations in heap usage.

The abstract machine for non-uniform TyCO is based on a similar specification for the uniform case. The changes are very  localized and regard essentially the structure of individual communication channels. Based on experience gathered with an implementation of uniform TyCO, we discuss the advantages (and disadvantages) of non-uniformity from the point of view of performance.

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