2 Position

The problem we shall address is, can process algebras such as the pi-calculus help us to make formal models of reconfigurable components and of their composition into distributed systems? This problem is of significance partly because contemporary distributed systems are usually built from dynamically reconfigurable components and partly because the desire to have well-designed and validated systems might be more readily realised if suitable formal methods are used. The insights we are looking for to solve this problem are: do processes provide suitable components for the design of distributed systems, how do they compare with objects, is the pi-calculus mature enough to be used to design and validate such components and does this approach lead to a versatile (simple but powerful) architecture for components in a distributed environment?