Using the object space: a distributed parallel make

Abstract

The author presents the object space approach to distributed computation. It allows for decoupled communication between program components by providing a shared data space of objects. The object space approach extends the sequential language C++ with coordination and communication primitives, such as those in Linda. It integrates inheritance into the associative addressing scheme and facilitates passing of arbitrary objects between program components. Furthermore, the author introduces the notion of application-specific matching functions. A prototype for object space has been implemented in C++ under UNIX. The author gives a distributed parallel make as an example to demonstrate the ideas and use of the concepts developed.<>