Towards a theory of (self) applicative communicating processes: a short note

Abstract

In this paper a direct combination of the λ-calculus with concepts from concurrency is introduced. Abstraction and (self) application from the λ-calculus are maintained as primitive constructs in the combined calculus, which incorporates also notions of (non)deterministic choice, concurrent and sequential composition, communication, encapsulation, and hiding as in process algebra (CCS, etc.). In this setting λ is just an arbitrary port name without any special role. We give an operational semantics to the combined calculus, where process application appears as a generalisation of function application. The combined calculus has great expressive power: recursive constructs appear through self application and data objects are just component processes in concurrent constructs.