Re: JCSP - Initial Questions

[tjoccam@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Neil and Anne,

I know I'm a bit late, and maybe this is so obvious it's not worth
mentioning, but...

>> * The nomenclature of channel.in() and channel.out() is confusing.
>> Channel.out() should be the endpoint of the channel, not the output of
>> the component where a channel starts. If a channel is a first-class
>> entity, it should be treated like that.
>>
> I know Peter (one of the authors) is aware of this confusion.  We think
> in a process-oriented manner, hence out() is from the perspective of the
> process.  reader() and writer() would have been better - and may yet be
> used in future.

The entire JCSP project is process-oriented primarily; the Java parts are
there because of the necessity of running it over Java. Therefore to
understand its "spirit" it would make sense to study a pure
process-oriented language, e.g. occam - "occam 2 Reference Manual", Inmos,
1988 is a quick study, only 133 p long, including lots of intuitive
examples. The relation to JCSP entities will be obvious.

Larry Dickson