COT 5937 Language and Semantic Issues in Distributed Computing
COT 5937
Spring 1997
Language and Semantic Issues
in Distributed Computing
Copyright © 1997 Rebecca J. Parsons
Introduction:
Welcome to the Special Topics course on Language and Semantic Issues
in Distributed Computing. This course will look at distributed
computing from the perspective of languages, language semantics and
application development as opposed to hardware architecture, operating
systems, or networking. To do this, you will develop an understanding
of programming languages as a discipline as opposed to a language only
being a vehicle with which to write a program. Additionally, you will
learn the tools of a semanticist: denotational, operational, and
axiomatic semantics. These tools will be used to characterize an
example distributed language (to be named by the class). This
language includes constructs to allow different forms of distributed
computing. The semantic tools will allow us to compare these
differing forms, determining the situations in which each style is
appropriate, and the advantages and disadvantages of the approaches.
The course text is ``Formal Syntax and Semantics of Programming
Languages'' by Slonneger and Kurtz. This information will be
supplemented with handouts on the distributed component of the course.
In addition, there are course notes and directions accessible here.
Contact Information:
Assignments:
Other Information on the course: