Object-oriented concurrent constraint programming in Oz

Abstract

Oz is an experimental higher-order concurrent constraint programming system under development at DFKI. It combines ideas from logic and concurrent programming in a simple yet expressive language. From logic programming Oz inherits logic variables and logic data structures, which provide for a programming style where partial information about the values of variables is imposed concurrently and incrementally. A novel feature of Oz is that it accommodates higher-order programming without sacrificing that denotation and equality of variables are captured by first-order logic. Another new feature of Oz is constraint communication, a new form of asynchronous communication exploiting logic variables. Constraint communication avoids the problems of stream communication, the conventional communication mechanism employed in concurrent logic programming. Constraint communication can be seen as providing a minimal form of state fully compatible with logic data structures. Based on constraint communication and higher-order programming, Oz readily supports a variety of object-oriented programming styles including multiple inheritance.