REMOTE EVALUATION TECHNIQUES FOR PERSONAL COMPUTER NETWORKS

REMOTE EVALUATION IS A MECHANISM BY WHICH LISP COMPUTATIONS MAY BE INVOKED WITHIN LOOSELY COUPLED, DISTRIBUTED LISP-BASED APPLICATIONS. THE MECHANISM SUPPORTS BOTH SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS BEHAVIORS, THUS PROVIDING THE ABILITY TO INITIATE CONCURRENT OPERATIONS. THE PROGRAMMERS IS ALSO PROVIDED WITH A MECHANISM FOR SYNCHRONIZATION OF THE CONCURRENT OPERATIONS. THE REMOTE-EVALUATION FUNCTIONALITY IS PROVIDED BETWEEN A COLLECTION OF FULL COMMON LISP PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENTS. THESE ENVIRONMENTS ARE VIEWED AS LOOSELY COUPLED, EACH WITH ITS PRIVATE, NON-SHARED LISP WORKSPACE, AND WITHOUT THE ABILITY TO CAUSE DIRECT SIDE EFFECTS WITHIN ANY OTHER SUCH ENVIRONMENT. THE REMOTE-EVALUATION FUNCTIONALITY FACILITIES THE SHARING OF COMPUTATION AND DATA BETWEEN THESE LOOSELY COUPLED WORKSPACES.