Dejay: unifying concurrency and distribution to achieve a distributed Java

Abstract

In the development of distributed programs, two different concepts have to be considered, each being quite complex even on its own: concurrency and distribution. For both concepts, similar problems like synchronization and communication need to be addressed, yet they are treated with completely different mechanisms. The paper presents Dejay, a programming language based on Java that unifies concurrency and distribution into the single mechanism of virtual processors. This allows a considerable simplification for the development of distributed or concurrent programs and makes the transition from a local to a distributed environment seamless.