An Object-Oriented View of Action Systems

Action systems are used in chapter 2 to represent a message communicating process (Merge), a fragment of an operating system (mutual exclusion), a process controller (odometer), and even solutions to combinatorial problems (gcd, shortest path). The syntax and semantics of action systems are sparse, yet we developed succinct programs for several well-known problems. This chapter extends the programming model of chapter 2 to make it easier to describe process interactions. Additionally, we address the issue of program composition in some detail.