Towards the Implementation of a Uniform Object Model

Abstract

In most cases the programming models of distributed object-oriented systems have a two-stage or even a three-stage object model with different kinds of objects for values, distributable and non-distributable objects. This allows an efficient implementation for at least non-distributed objects, because traditional compilers can be used. This paper discusses some aspects of the implementation of a uniform object model that does not know of any distinction between distributable and non-distributable objects and allows an independent application description of the distribution of objects.

Instead of integrating distribution later into a non-distributed language our method takes the opposite approach. For the time being a distributed object model is implemented in a general, distributed, and, of course, inefficient way. With some additional information derived by user supplied declarations or automatically by a compiler the general implementation becomes more and more optimized. With assertions like immutable or constantly and initially bound objects the implementation can be optimized such that the non-distributed case is not worse than in traditional object-oriented languages.