Formal Approaches to Concurrency
Abstract
Formal (algebraic, combinatorial, logical) treatment of concurrent processes and of distributed systems has started rather recently only, although concurrent and distributed activities dedicated to common tasks are daily practice and have always played an important role for human societies. The traditional notions of computability are all based on the concept of a single person fulfilling a task step by step. This is very explicit in Turing's work - and even if the formalism would allow for consideration of concurrency, as in the case of recursive functions defined by sets of equations, this possibility was not discussed for a long time. Nevertheless there are connections of the current theories of concurrency to the different approaches to formalize the notion of effective computation: Turing machines, lambda-calculus and recursive functions. The two main approaches to concurrency that will be described in the following, namely Petri nets and abstract programming languages, are closely related to them. A Petri net can be understood as a formalization of the joint work of a group of people, the abstract programming languages are greatly influenced by the ideas around the lambda-calculus; their purpose is to prescribe what should be done by cooperating agents. (kr)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA213955
Entities
People
- Wilfried Brauer