### A Syntactic Theory of Message PassingA Syntactic Theory of Message Passing

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 Author Ward, Stephen A. ♦ Halstead, Robert H. Source ACM Digital Library Content type Text Publisher Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) File Format PDF Copyright Year ©1980 Language English
 Subject Domain (in DDC) Computer science, information & general works ♦ Data processing & computer science Abstract Recent developments by Hewitt and others have stimulated interest in message-passing constructs as an alternative to the more conventional applicative semantics on which most current languages are based. The present work illuminates the distinction between applicative and message-passing semantics by means of the $\textit{μ}-calculus,$ a syntactic model of message-passing systems similar in mechanism to the λ-calculus. Algorithms for the translation of expressions from the λ- to the $\textit{μ}-calculus$ are presented, and differences between the two approaches are discussed.Message-passing semantics seem particularly applicable to the study of multiprocessing. The $\textit{μ}-calculus,$ through the mechanism of $\textit{conduits,}$ provides a simple model for a limited but interesting class of parallel computations. Multiprocessing capabilities of the $\textit{μ}-calculus$ are illustrated, and multiple-processor implementations are discussed briefly. ISSN 00045411 Age Range 18 to 22 years ♦ above 22 year Educational Use Research Education Level UG and PG Learning Resource Type Article Publisher Date 1980-04-01 Publisher Place New York e-ISSN 1557735X Journal Journal of the ACM (JACM) Volume Number 27 Issue Number 2 Page Count 19 Starting Page 365 Ending Page 383

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Source: ACM Digital Library