Abstract Machines for Dynamic Computation (2001)
| Venue: | UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH |
| Citations: | 9 - 0 self |
BibTeX
@TECHREPORT{Walton01abstractmachines,
author = {Christopher David Walton},
title = {Abstract Machines for Dynamic Computation},
institution = {UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH},
year = {2001}
}
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Abstract
In this thesis we address the challenges associated with the provision of dynamic software architectures. These are systems in which programs are constructed from separately compiled units with a facility for the replacement of these units at runtime. Typical examples of applications which will benefit from this dynamic approach are long-lived systems in which downtime is highly undesirable, for example, web-servers, database engines, and equipment controllers. In addition, dynamic software architectures are also gaining popularity with the recent advent of wide-area Internet applications, where it is often impractical to compile a program in its entirety or begin execution in a single step. Our approach to dynamic software architectures differs from earlier attempts in that we guarantee the safety of the replacement operation. This is done by founding our techniques on the rigour of strong typing. In the first half of the thesis we take an existing static software architecture with strong typing facilities and modular program construction, namely the Standard ML platform, and equip
