A Top-Down Approach for a Generic Programming Abstraction in Real Space-Time

Today’s widely used programming approach formobile distributed systems, e.g., swarms, is bottom-up. I.e.,the programmer has to be aware of the system’s distribution.Such a kind of programming corrupts the principle Separationof Concerns and turns out to be complicated. Thisarticle proposes a top-down approach for the programmingof mobile distributed systems. It should be incorporated in anew operating system to be developed by our research group.Classical distributed systems often are intended to hidetheir distribution from the user but not stringently from theprogrammer. Moreover, most applications don’t consider theexecuting system’s location and mobility, respectively. However,state-of-the-art mobile distributed systems’ applicationsare widely based on location and motion data. So, the programmingapproach of classical distributed systems whichabstracts from location and motion might no longer be convenient.We suggest raising the level of abstraction in orderto hide the system’s distribution from the user and programmer,in contrast to the bottom-up programming approach of,e.g., swarms. This distribution transparency within the executingsystem is intended to be combined with location/-motion awareness within the application so that the requirementsof modern applications can be met. The programmingof such a distributed mobile system will be separated fromthe complex and error-prone application partitioning and assignmenta bottom-up approach would impose. This offersfurther benefits like scalability and robustness with regard toscheduling of sub-activities and sub-systems, respectively.We promote the use of spatiotemporal constraints to realizesuch a top-down approach. These constraints will be introducedand explained using two examples.