Programming languages and systems for prototyping concurrent applications

Abstract

Concurrent programming is conceptually harder to undertake and to understand than sequential programming, because a programmer has to manage the coexistence and coordination of multiple concurrent activities. To alleviate this task several high-level approaches to concurrent programming have been developed. For some high-level programming approaches, prototyping for facilitating early evaluation of new ideas is a central goal. Prototyping is used to explore the essential features of a proposed system through practical experimentation before its actual implementation to make the correct design choices early in the process of software development. Approaches to prototyping concurrent applications with very high-level programming systems intend to alleviate the development in different ways. Early experimentation with alternate design choices or problem decompositions for concurrent applications is suggested to make concurrent programming easier. This paper presents a survey of programming languages and systems for prototyping concurrent applications to review the state of the art in this area. The surveyed approaches are classified with respect to the prototyping process.