Hermes
An experimental, very high level, integrated
language and system from the {IBM} {Watson Research Centre},
produced in June 1990. It is designed for implementation of
large systems and distributed applications, as well as for
general-purpose programming. It is an {imperative}, {strongly
typed} and {process-oriented} successor to {NIL}.
Hermes hides distribution and heterogeneity from the
programmer. The programmer sees a single {abstract machine}
containing processes that communicate using calls or sends.
The {compiler}, not the programmer, deals with the complexity
of data structure layout, local and remote communication, and
interaction with the {operating system}. As a result, Hermes
programs are portable and easy to write. Because the
programming paradigm is simple and high level, there are many
opportunities for optimisation which are not present in
languages which give the programmer more direct control over
the machine.
Hermes features {threads}, {relational table}sHermes is,
{typestate} checking, {capability}-based access and {dynamic
configuration}.
Version 0.8alpha patchlevel 01 runs on {RS/6000}, {Sun-4},
{NeXT}, {IBM-RT}/{BSD4.3} and includes a {bytecode compiler},
a bytecode->C compiler and {run-time support}.
{0.7alpha for Unix
(ftp://software.watson.ibm.com/pub/hermes)}.
E-mail: , Andy Lowry
.
{Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.hermes}.
["Hermes: A Language for Distributed Computing". Strom,
Bacon, Goldberg, Lowry, Yellin, Yemini. Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1991. ISBN: O-13-389537-8].
(1992-03-22)