Externally indexed torrent
If you are the original uploader, contact staff to have it moved to your account
Textbook in PDF format
Communication is a fundamental and integral part of computing, whether between different computers on a network, or between components within a single computer. In this book Robin Milner introduces a new way of modeling communication that reflects its position. He treats computers and their programs as themselves built from communicating parts, rather than adding communication as an extra level of activity. Everything is introduced by means of examples, such as mobile phones, job schedulers, vending machines, data structures, and the objects of object-oriented programming. But the aim of the book is to develop a theory, the calculus, in which these things can be treated rigorously.
The r-calculus differs from other models of communicating behavior mainly in its treatment of mobility. The movement of a piece of data inside a computer program is treated exactly the same as the transfer of a message or indeed an entire computer program — across the internet. One can also describe networks which reconfigure themselves.
The calculus is very simple but powerful. Its most prominent notion is that of a name, and it has two important ingredients: the concept of behavioral (or observational) equivalence, and the use of a new theory of types to classify patterns of interactive behavior. The internet, and its communication protocols, fall within the scope of the theory just as much as computer programs, data structures, algorithms and programming languages.
This book is the first textbook of the subject it has been long-awaited by professionals and will be welcomed by them, and their students.
Communicating systems
Introduction
Behavior of automata
Sequential processes and bisimulation
Concurrent processes and reaction
Transitions and strong equivalence
Observation equivalence: theory
Observation equivalence: examples
The pi-calculus
Whar is mobility?
The pi-calculus and reaction
Applications of the pi-calculus
Sort, objects, and functions
Commitments and strong bisimulation
Observation equivalence and examples
Discussion and related work