Towards distributed objects for real-time systems

Abstract

This paper illustrates that several of the new features specified in the revised Ada standard facilitate programming real-time distributed/parallel applications. In particular, the Ada Distributed Systems Annex supports both statically bound and the more object-oriented dynamically bound remote procedure calls. These features are used to implement a paradigm for composing asynchronous remote procedure calls when both input and output parameters are required. The paradigm is based upon the notion of a distributed object through which the output parameters may be returned without blocking the execution of the caller. Such paradigms, when combined with the enhanced features for concurrency and data synchronization, suggest that Ada will contribute towards understanding some of the issues relevant to developing efficient implementations of distributed objects to support the next generation of real time systems.<>