FUTURES: a mechanism for concurrency among objects

ABSTRACT

A future provides the basic primitive through which a user in an object-oriented distributed system can achieve concurrency. It is based on the notion of being able to translate what appears to be a remote procedure call into a request for computation to be scheduled by the system. The mechanism required to make this translation is discussed. Refinements to the future mechanism allow futures to be passed as arguments to other procedure calls. This provides the user with the added flexibility of implementing synchronization schemes suited to specific needs. Further, it simplifies the process of migrating an object which has outstanding futures at the time of migration.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.3 Language Constructs and Features
          Subjects: Procedures, functions, and subroutines
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.1 Process Management
          Subjects: Synchronization; Concurrency
      D.4.7 Organization and Design
          Subjects: Distributed systems

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Performance