Higher-order distributed objects

Abstract

We describe a distributed implementation of Scheme that permits efficient transmission of higher-order objects such as closures and continuations. The integration of distributed communication facilities within a higher-order programming language engenders a number of new abstractions and paradigms for distributed computing. Among these are user-specified load-balancing and migration policies for threads, incrementally linked distributed computations, and parameterized client-server applications. To our knowledge, this is the first distributed dialect of Scheme (or a related language) that addresses lightweight communication abstractions for higher-order objects.