Paper Info
Title
On Reconciling Concurrency, Sequentiality and Determinacy for Reactive Systems—A Sequentially Constructive Circuit Semantics for Esterel
Abstract
A classic challenge in designing reactive systems is how to reconcile concurrency with determinacy. Synchronous languages, such as Esterel, SyncCharts or SCADE, resolve this by providing a semantics that does not depend on run-time scheduling decisions. Esterel's circuit semantics is grounded in physics: An Esterel program is considered valid (constructive) iff it corresponds to a delay-insensitive circuit. The circuit semantics provides on the one hand a mathematically grounded semantics, based on constructive logic, on the other hand it gives a direct path to a data-flow style software implementation. However, Esterel's constructive semantics entails a rather restricted regime for handling sequential accesses to shared data. Thus many programs are rejected as being non-constructive, even though they have a very natural, determinate interpretation. We here present a sequentially constructive circuit semantics (SCC) that lifts this restriction, by distinguishing sequential and concurrent execution contexts. This permits an imperative style familiar to programmers versed in C, for example, without leaving the sound physical foundation of synchronous programming.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1109/ACSD.2018.00018
2018 18th International Conference on Application of Concurrency to System Design (ACSD)
Keywords
Field
DocType
Reactive systems,determinacy,synchronous programming,sequential constructiveness,Esterel,circuit semantics
Intuitionistic logic,Constructive,Computer science,Concurrency,Theoretical computer science,Concurrent computing,Esterel,Reactive system,Determinacy,Semantics
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
1550-4808
978-1-5386-7014-9
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
11
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Alexander Schulz-Rosengarten1113.28
Steven Smyth2336.51
Reinhard von Hanxleden341247.20
Michael Mendler431434.60