A distributed object oriented language and operating system

Abstract

The authors are developing an operating system to support distributed object processing. The operating system can be viewed as an extension of the runtime for concurrent object oriented C (cooC). The original runtime for cooC supported network transparent execution of Smalltalk/Objective-C like objects. The notion of a cooC machine served as the logical unit of distribution and resource allocation. Objects that share the same runtime are in the same cooC machine and are supported by a common resource. This model has now evolved into a three layer software architecture: object space (application layer); runtime space (operating system); and network and memory space (kernel). The object space is realized as cooC. The runtime is a resource boundary, possessing a number of threads and a mail queue, and allows for various scheduling and evaluation alternatives. The network and memory level provides a distributed object name space, support for runtime mobility, and persistence.< >