View-Centric Reasoning for Linda and Tuple Space

In contrast to sequential computation, concurrent computation gives rise to parallel events. E#orts to translate the history of concurrent computations into sequential event traces result in the potential uncertainty of the observed order of these events. Loosely coupled distributed systems complicate this uncertainty even further by introducing the element of multiple imperfect observers of these parallel events. Properties of such systems are di#cult to reason about, and in some cases, attempts to prove safety or liveness lead to ambiguities. We present a survey of challenges of reasoning about properties of concurrent systems. We then propose a new approach, view-centric reasoning, that avoids the problem of translating concurrency into a sequential representation. Finally. we demonstrate the usefulness of view-centric reasoning as a framework for disambiguating the meaning of tuple space predicate operations, versions of which exist commercially in IBM's T Spaces and Sun's JavaSpaces