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@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ by **Tony Garnock-Jones**
PhD dissertation, supervised by Matthias Felleisen
Northeastern University, December 2017
Contact: <tonyg@leastfixedpoint.com>
<span id="dissertation"></span>The dissertation itself is available in two formats:
- [PDF]({{ site.baseurl
@ -20,7 +22,54 @@ Northeastern University, December 2017
On this page, you will find a
[recording](#dissertation-defense-talk-recording) of my dissertation
defense talk, the [slides](#dissertation-defense-slides) I used for my
talk, and the [proof scripts](#proofs) accompanying the dissertation.
talk, a [source code snapshot](#source-code-snapshot) of the Syndicate
implementations and examples, and the [proof scripts](#proofs)
accompanying the dissertation.
### Abstract
Concurrent computations resemble conversations. In a conversation,
participants direct utterances at others and, as the conversation
evolves, exploit the known common context to advance the conversation.
Similarly, collaborating software components share knowledge with each
other in order to make progress as a group towards a common goal.
This dissertation studies concurrency from the perspective of
cooperative knowledge-sharing, taking the conversational exchange of
knowledge as a central concern in the design of concurrent programming
languages. In doing so, it makes five contributions:
0. It develops the idea of a common dataspace as a medium for
knowledge exchange among concurrent components, enabling a new
approach to concurrent programming.
While dataspaces loosely resemble both “fact spaces” from the
world of Linda-style languages and Erlang's collaborative model,
they significantly differ in many details.
0. It offers the first crisp formulation of cooperative,
conversational knowledge-exchange as a mathematical model.
0. It describes two faithful implementations of the model for two
quite different languages.
0. It proposes a completely novel suite of linguistic constructs for
organizing the internal structure of individual actors in a
conversational setting.
The combination of dataspaces with these constructs is dubbed
Syndicate.
0. It presents and analyzes evidence suggesting that the proposed
techniques and constructs combine to simplify concurrent
programming.
The dataspace concept stands alone in its focus on representation and
manipulation of conversational frames and conversational state and in
its integral use of explicit epistemic knowledge. The design is
particularly suited to integration of general-purpose I/O with
otherwise-functional languages, but also applies to actor-like
settings more generally.
### Dissertation defense talk recording
@ -28,8 +77,8 @@ I defended my thesis on the 8th of December, 2017. The talk was
recorded. There is a copy on the
[Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/TonyGarnockJonesDoctoralDissertationDefense8Dec2017)
(embedded below) and another at
[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8jgUFWVD5s). (The sound is
*very* quiet on the recording.)
[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8jgUFWVD5s). (I'm afraid
that the sound is *very* quiet on the recording.)
<p class="center"><iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/TonyGarnockJonesDoctoralDissertationDefense8Dec2017" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
@ -41,51 +90,15 @@ The slides from my defense talk are available
<p class="center"><iframe src="html/presentation.html" width="640" height="480"></iframe></p>
### Source code snapshot
The source code for the Syndicate prototypes and example applications,
as they were at the time of my dissertation, will be available here
shortly. In the meantime, please see the downloads available at
<http://syndicate-lang.org/> and
<https://github.com/tonyg/syndicate/>.
### Proofs
The Coq scripts representing the proofs of some of the theorems from
my dissertation will be available here shortly.
<!-- ### Abstract -->
<!-- Concurrent computations resemble conversations. In a conversation, -->
<!-- participants direct utterances at others and, as the conversation -->
<!-- evolves, exploit the known common context to advance the conversation. -->
<!-- Similarly, collaborating software components share knowledge with each -->
<!-- other in order to make progress as a group towards a common goal. -->
<!-- This dissertation studies concurrency from the perspective of -->
<!-- cooperative knowledge-sharing, taking the conversational exchange of -->
<!-- knowledge as a central concern in the design of concurrent programming -->
<!-- languages. In doing so, it makes five contributions: -->
<!-- 0. It develops the idea of a common dataspace as a medium for -->
<!-- knowledge exchange among concurrent components, enabling a new -->
<!-- approach to concurrent programming. -->
<!-- While dataspaces loosely resemble both “fact spaces” from the -->
<!-- world of Linda-style languages and Erlang's collaborative model, -->
<!-- they significantly differ in many details. -->
<!-- 0. It offers the first crisp formulation of cooperative, -->
<!-- conversational knowledge-exchange as a mathematical model. -->
<!-- 0. It describes two faithful implementations of the model for two -->
<!-- quite different languages. -->
<!-- 0. It proposes a completely novel suite of linguistic constructs for -->
<!-- organizing the internal structure of individual actors in a -->
<!-- conversational setting. -->
<!-- The combination of dataspaces with these constructs is dubbed Syndicate. -->
<!-- 0. It presents and analyzes evidence suggesting that the proposed -->
<!-- techniques and constructs combine to simplify concurrent -->
<!-- programming. -->
<!-- The dataspace concept stands alone in its focus on representation and -->
<!-- manipulation of conversational frames and conversational state and in -->
<!-- its integral use of explicit epistemic knowledge. The design is -->
<!-- particularly suited to integration of general-purpose I/O with -->
<!-- otherwise-functional languages, but also applies to actor-like -->
<!-- settings more generally. -->