Concurrency oriented programming in termite scheme

Abstract

Termite Scheme is a variant of Scheme intended for distributed computing. It offers a simple and powerful concurrency model, inspired by the Erlang programming language, which is based on a message-passing model of concurrency. Our system is well suited for building custom protocols and abstractions for distributed computation. Its open network model allows for the building of non-centralized distributed applications. The possibility of failure is reflected in the model, and ways to handle failure are available in the language. We exploit the existence of first class continuations in order to allow the expression of high-level concepts such as process migration. We describe the Termite model and its implications, how it compares to Erlang, and describe sample applications built with Termite. We conclude with a discussion of the current implementation and its performance.