Synchronizing Concurrent Objects in the Pi-Calculus

The development of concurrent object-based programming languages has suffered from the lack of any generally accepted formal foundation for defining their semantics. Therefore we are seeking for a minimal semantic foundation for defining features of concurrent object-based languages. Our previous work has shown that the Pi-calculus is a promising formal foundation for modelling objects, and we have defined an object model integrating common features of object-oriented programming languages. Our goal is to define a black-box framework for modelling objects. As a first extension of our Pi-calculus based object model, we present in this work the integration of abstractions for synchronizing concurrent objects. Our results show that objects are most easily synchronized when synchronization policies are reified as first class entities (i.e. metaobjects) and that McHale's concept of ``generic synchronization policies'' forms a promising base for the definition of higher-level, reusable synchronization abstractions.