Netclos and Parallel Abstractions - Actor and Structure-oriented Programming on Workstation Clusters with Common Lisp ?

In this paper, we describe an extension of Common Lisp which allows the deeni-tion of parallel programs within that functional and object-oriented language. In particular, the extensions are the introducing of active objects, sending synchronous and asynchronous messages between them, automatic and manual distribution of active objects to object spaces, and transparent object managing. With these extensions, object-oriented parallel programming on a workstation cluster using diierent Common Lisp images is possible. These concepts are implemented as an extension of Allegro Common Lisp subsumed by the name NetCLOS. Furthermore, it is shown how NetCLOS can be used to realize parallel abstractions for implementing parallel AI methods at a highly abstract level.