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Distributed Programming


This section builds on the previous one -- concurrency.

Partial Failure Tools for recovering distributed consistency
Promise Pipelining Massive latency compensation
Object Passing PassByConstruction, PassByProxy, etc
VatTP Protocol inter-Vat Transport Protocol
SSL-like data pipes between pairs of Vats.
  VLS: The Vat Location Service (a part of VatTP)
Routing on cryptographic identity rather than DNS name.
CapTP Protocol Capability Transport Protocol
Unum *** To be written

The above sections cover the only kind of distributed programming currently supported by E -- programming with on-line messages sent over live references. The one form of off-line communication currently support by E is the SturdyRef, an off-line reference transmissible over other media.

SPKI points the way to a very different means of implementing and using distributed cryptographic capabilities: via off-line certificates. Indeed, to the degree that SPKI can be said to be the foundations for a capability system, E-speak >= 3.0 is a capability system built from SPKI.

Inspired by SPKI and Nikita Borisov's Active Certificates, at CapCert we are working towards a draft proposal for what would be a full fledged capability system implemented from off-line active invocation certificates. CapCert and the above on-line protocols are naturally complementary. We hope to see a future E (sometime after 1.0) in which these two are well integrated.

 
Unless stated otherwise, all text on this page which is either unattributed or by Mark S. Miller is hereby placed in the public domain.
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